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Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she meets teenage twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the time that follow, they will rape her, then entomb her breathing, a mix of nervousness and irritation darting across their faces as they eventually free her from her makeshift coffin.

This may have functioned as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's merely a single of many horrific events in The Elements, which gathers four novellas – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront previous suffering and try to discover peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other nominees withdrew in dissent at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Conversation of trans rights is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of major issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, parental neglect and sexual violence are all explored.

Multiple Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow moves to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles revenge with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a parent flies to a memorial service with his teenage son, and considers how much to divulge about his family's history.

Pain is piled on trauma as hurt survivors seem doomed to bump into each other repeatedly for all time

Linked Accounts

Links multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to leave 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. Supporting characters from one account resurface in homes, bars or judicial venues in another.

These storylines may sound complicated, but the author knows how to power a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His direct prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Personality Development and Narrative Power

Characters are sketched in brief, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of weak tea.

The author's ability of carrying you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a genuine frisson, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: trauma is piled on trauma, accident on accident in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem destined to bump into each other repeatedly for forever.

Thematic Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and more like purgatory, that is element of the author's message. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the influence of his individual experiences of harm and he portrays with compassion the way his cast negotiate this dangerous landscape, reaching out for treatments – seclusion, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "elemental" concept isn't terribly informative, while the brisk pace means the exploration of social issues or social media is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly readable, victim-focused epic: a welcome response to the usual preoccupation on authorities and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how years and care can quieten its echoes.