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Twelve-year-old Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she meets teenage twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that ensue, they will rape her, then entomb her breathing, a mix of nervousness and frustration darting across their faces as they finally release her from her improvised coffin.

This could have served as the jarring focal point of a novel, but it's merely a single of multiple awful events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront previous suffering and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been clouded by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees dropped out in protest at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of traditional and social media, parental neglect and abuse are all investigated.

Four Narratives of Pain

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a dad travels to a burial with his teenage son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's history.

Pain is layered with pain as wounded survivors seem fated to encounter each other repeatedly for eternity

Related Narratives

Relationships abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one narrative resurface in houses, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been rendered into many languages. His direct prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is alter my name".

Character Development and Narrative Power

Characters are portrayed in succinct, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring 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 jabs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's ability of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a real excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is dulling, and at times almost comic: trauma is accumulated upon suffering, accident on chance in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem fated to encounter each other again and again for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds less like life and resembling purgatory, that is aspect of the author's message. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn hurt others. The author has spoken about the impact of his individual experiences of mistreatment and he describes with sympathy the way his cast navigate this risky landscape, reaching out for remedies – isolation, cold ocean swims, resolution or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't particularly educational, while the quick pace means the examination of sexual politics or social media is mostly shallow. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a entirely engaging, victim-focused epic: a valued response to the typical preoccupation on authorities and criminals. The author demonstrates how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how duration and care can quieten its echoes.