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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the time that follow, they violate her, then bury her alive, a mix of unease and frustration darting across their faces as they ultimately free her from her improvised coffin.

This could have served as the jarring focal point of a novel, but it's just one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which gathers four short novels – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to discover peace in the present moment.

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's issuance has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the preliminary list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other contenders withdrew in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Debate of trans rights is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, family disregard and abuse are all examined.

Distinct Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on trial as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a dad journeys to a memorial service with his teenage son, and considers how much to reveal about his family's history.

Trauma is layered with pain as wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other again and again for forever

Related Narratives

Connections proliferate. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one story resurface in cottages, bars or courtrooms in another.

These narrative elements may sound tangled, but the author knows how to power a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His straightforward prose bristles with gripping hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Character Portrayal and Narrative Power

Characters are sketched in concise, impactful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with sad power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after having an accident at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a real thrill, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times practically comic: trauma is piled on suffering, coincidence on chance in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other again and again for eternity.

Conceptual Complexity and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and closer to purgatory, that is element of the author's message. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and spiral and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the impact of his individual experiences of harm and he depicts with compassion the way his cast traverse this dangerous landscape, reaching out for remedies – seclusion, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "basic" structure isn't extremely instructive, while the rapid pace means the discussion of social issues or online networks is mostly superficial. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, victim-focused epic: a welcome response to the common obsession on investigators and offenders. The author demonstrates how trauma can permeate lives and generations, and how years and care can quieten its reverberations.