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Young Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, blend of nervousness and annoyance flitting across their faces as they finally liberate her from her temporary coffin.

This might have stood as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's just one of multiple terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront historical pain and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's release has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees dropped out in dissent at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Discussion of trans rights is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of traditional and social media, parental neglect and assault are all explored.

Multiple Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages vengeance with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a parent journeys to a memorial service with his young son, and considers how much to reveal about his family's background.

Trauma is piled on suffering as hurt survivors seem destined to encounter each other repeatedly for forever

Interconnected Accounts

Relationships abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative reappear in homes, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These narrative elements may sound complex, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been converted into many languages. His businesslike prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to play with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Character Portrayal and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in concise, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a real thrill, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times almost comic: pain is layered with pain, coincidence on accident in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to encounter each other again and again for all time.

Thematic Complexity and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds less like life and resembling purgatory, that is part of the author's point. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, caught in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the influence of his own experiences of harm and he depicts with compassion the way his cast navigate this perilous landscape, striving for remedies – isolation, icy sea dips, resolution or refreshing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't terribly instructive, while the rapid pace means the examination of gender dynamics or online networks is mostly superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely readable, victim-focused chronicle: a valued rebuttal to the common fixation on investigators and perpetrators. The author illustrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can soften its reverberations.