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Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the days that ensue, they will rape her, then inter her while living, combination of anxiety and irritation flitting across their faces as they finally liberate her from her improvised coffin.

This might have stood as the jarring main event of a novel, but it's just one of many horrific events in The Elements, which gathers four short novels – issued individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront historical pain and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other candidates withdrew in objection at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is not present from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the impact of conventional and digital platforms, caregiver abandonment and assault are all investigated.

Four Stories of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles vengeance with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a parent flies to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to reveal about his family's background.

Trauma is piled on pain as hurt survivors seem doomed to meet each other again and again for forever

Related Stories

Relationships abound. We first meet 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. Secondary characters from one account resurface in houses, taverns or courtrooms in another.

These storylines may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into dozens languages. His straightforward prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I come to the island is modify my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Strength

Characters are drawn in brief, powerful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an previous story a real thrill, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: suffering is accumulated upon trauma, accident on accident in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem fated to encounter each other continuously for forever.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds different from life and resembling limbo, that is element of the author's point. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have experienced, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the effect of his own experiences of abuse and he portrays with understanding the way his ensemble navigate this risky landscape, extending for solutions – isolation, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "basic" structure isn't extremely educational, while the quick pace means the examination of social issues or digital platforms is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a thoroughly engaging, trauma-oriented epic: a valued riposte to the usual obsession on detectives and offenders. The author illustrates how trauma can run through lives and generations, and how duration and care can quieten its echoes.