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Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she encounters teenage twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that come after, they violate her, then bury her alive, a mix of anxiety and annoyance darting across their faces as they eventually free her from her temporary coffin.

This might have stood as the jarring main event of a novel, but it's merely a single of many terrible events in The Elements, which assembles four novelettes – published individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront previous suffering and try to discover peace in the present moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been marred by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees withdrew in dissent at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Discussion of gender identity issues is not present from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, family disregard and assault are all examined.

Distinct Narratives of Pain

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya balances revenge with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a dad journeys to a memorial service with his young son, and wonders how much to reveal about his family's background.

Trauma is piled on pain as damaged survivors seem destined to encounter each other repeatedly for forever

Linked Stories

Connections abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's panel 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 cottages, taverns or courtrooms in another.

These narrative elements may sound complicated, but the author knows how to propel a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His straightforward prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the first thing I do when I arrive on the island is alter my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are sketched in brief, effective lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes echo with sad power or insightful humour: a boy is hit by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap insults over cups of weak tea.

The author's ability of transporting you completely into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a real thrill, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times practically comic: trauma is piled on suffering, accident on accident in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to meet each other again and again for eternity.

Conceptual Depth and Final Assessment

If this sounds different from life and closer to purgatory, that is part of the author's thesis. These damaged people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, caught in cycles of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has discussed about the impact of his own experiences of mistreatment and he depicts with compassion the way his ensemble negotiate this dangerous landscape, striving for remedies – isolation, icy sea dips, resolution or refreshing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "basic" structure isn't terribly informative, while the rapid pace means the discussion of sexual politics or online networks is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a entirely accessible, victim-focused saga: a appreciated riposte to the common fixation on investigators and criminals. The author illustrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how years and care can silence its reverberations.