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Twelve-year-old Freya is visiting her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that follow, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, blend of unease and annoyance flitting across their faces as they finally liberate her from her improvised coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking main event of a novel, but it's merely a single of numerous horrific events in The Elements, which assembles four novelettes – published separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other contenders pulled out in dissent at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and sexual violence are all investigated.

Multiple Narratives of Suffering

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow moves to a secluded Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya manages revenge with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father travels to a funeral with his young son, and wonders how much to reveal about his family's background.

Suffering is layered with suffering as damaged survivors seem doomed to bump into each other again and again for eternity

Related Narratives

Relationships multiply. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative return in houses, pubs or judicial venues in another.

These storylines may sound complex, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his prior successful Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been rendered into many languages. His straightforward prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to play with fire"; "the primary step I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Strength

Characters are drawn in brief, impactful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade insults over cups of watery tea.

The author's ability of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a real frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is dulling, and at times almost comic: suffering is accumulated upon pain, chance on coincidence in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem destined to meet each other repeatedly for forever.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and closer to purgatory, that is part of the author's message. These wounded people are oppressed by the crimes they have experienced, caught in routines of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the influence of his individual experiences of abuse and he describes with compassion the way his characters traverse this dangerous landscape, reaching out for treatments – solitude, icy sea dips, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "fundamental" framing isn't particularly educational, while the brisk pace means the discussion of sexual politics or digital platforms is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, trauma-oriented saga: a valued rebuttal to the common obsession on authorities and criminals. The author shows how suffering can run through lives and generations, and how years and compassion can quieten its aftereffects.