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Young Freya stays with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she meets teenage twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the time that ensue, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, combination of unease and irritation darting across their faces as they finally release her from her makeshift coffin.

This could have served as the shocking main event of a novel, but it's merely a single of multiple terrible events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront past trauma and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other candidates pulled out in protest at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Discussion of gender identity issues is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, parental neglect and sexual violence are all explored.

Distinct Stories of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow moves to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles vengeance with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a father journeys to a memorial service with his young son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's background.

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

Interconnected Accounts

Links abound. We initially encounter 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, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one story resurface in homes, bars or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound tangled, but the author knows how to drive a narrative – his earlier popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into many languages. His direct prose sparkles with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to toy with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is modify my name".

Personality Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in concise, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes ring with sad power or observational humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of weak tea.

The author's ability of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic frisson, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times nearly comic: pain is piled on trauma, accident on chance in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other repeatedly for eternity.

Conceptual Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and more like uncertainty, that is part of the author's message. These wounded people are weighed down by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn hurt others. The author has discussed about the influence of his personal experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with compassion the way his cast navigate this dangerous landscape, reaching out for treatments – isolation, cold ocean swims, resolution or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "basic" framing isn't particularly educational, while the quick pace means the examination of social issues or online networks is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a entirely readable, victim-focused epic: a welcome riposte to the usual preoccupation on investigators and offenders. The author illustrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how duration and compassion can quieten its reverberations.