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Twelve-year-old Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she meets teenage twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that come after, they will rape her, then entomb her breathing, a mix of nervousness and annoyance darting across their faces as they ultimately release her from her makeshift coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking main event of a novel, but it's just one of many terrible events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – issued individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront past trauma and try to find peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other contenders withdrew in dissent at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is missing from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of traditional and social media, parental neglect and assault are all explored.

Four Stories of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on trial as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya balances vengeance with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father travels to a funeral with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's past.

Suffering is piled on pain as wounded survivors seem fated to meet each other repeatedly for all time

Related Stories

Connections proliferate. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one story return in homes, taverns or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound complicated, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his prior acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His straightforward prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Character Development and Narrative Power

Characters are portrayed in brief, powerful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is hit by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange insults over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of carrying you completely into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is dulling, and at times practically comic: trauma is layered with suffering, coincidence on coincidence in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem destined to encounter each other again and again for all time.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds not exactly life and resembling limbo, that is element of the author's message. These wounded people are oppressed by the crimes they have experienced, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and spiral and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the effect of his individual experiences of abuse and he portrays with compassion the way his ensemble negotiate this risky landscape, reaching out for solutions – isolation, icy sea dips, forgiveness or refreshing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't particularly educational, while the brisk pace means the exploration of social issues or online networks is mostly superficial. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a completely engaging, trauma-oriented chronicle: a appreciated rebuttal to the usual fixation on investigators and perpetrators. The author illustrates how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can silence its aftereffects.