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Young Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets teenage twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that follow, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, a mix of nervousness and frustration flitting across their faces as they ultimately free her from her improvised coffin.

This could have served as the disturbing focal point of a novel, but it's only one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which assembles four novelettes – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate previous suffering and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees pulled out in dissent at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of traditional and social media, caregiver abandonment and abuse are all investigated.

Four Accounts of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya balances vengeance with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a dad flies to a memorial service with his young son, and wonders how much to disclose about his family's past.

Suffering is layered with trauma as hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other repeatedly for all time

Linked Accounts

Links proliferate. We initially encounter 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, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one account reappear in houses, bars or judicial venues in another.

These storylines may sound complex, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into many languages. His businesslike prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is modify my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are drawn in concise, impactful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or perceptive humour: a boy is struck by his father after urinating at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's ability of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a genuine frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: trauma is piled on trauma, chance on accident in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem fated to encounter each other again and again for forever.

Thematic Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and closer to purgatory, that is element of the author's thesis. These damaged people are burdened by the crimes they have experienced, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has spoken about the impact of his individual experiences of harm and he describes with compassion the way his characters traverse this risky landscape, striving for treatments – isolation, icy sea dips, forgiveness or bracing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "basic" structure isn't particularly instructive, while the quick pace means the examination of sexual politics or digital platforms is mainly shallow. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a entirely accessible, survivor-centered epic: a valued response to the usual preoccupation on detectives and offenders. The author illustrates how trauma can permeate lives and generations, and how years and care can silence its aftereffects.