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Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the days that ensue, they violate her, then inter her while living, a mix of nervousness and irritation darting across their faces as they ultimately free her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of numerous terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novellas – issued individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to discover peace in the present moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other candidates withdrew in protest at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is missing from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of conventional and digital platforms, family disregard and sexual violence are all explored.

Distinct Stories of Trauma

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a dad journeys to a memorial service with his teenage son, and wonders how much to reveal about his family's past.

Trauma is accumulated upon trauma as hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other repeatedly for eternity

Related Stories

Relationships proliferate. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative reappear in cottages, pubs or legal settings in another.

These narrative elements may sound complex, but the author knows how to propel a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His direct prose sparkles with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Personality Development and Storytelling Strength

Characters are portrayed in succinct, effective lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is hit by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an previous story a authentic frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: pain is accumulated upon pain, accident on coincidence in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem fated to meet each other continuously for eternity.

Conceptual Depth and Final Assessment

If this sounds less like life and more like limbo, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and spiral and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the impact of his individual experiences of mistreatment and he describes with sympathy the way his cast navigate this risky landscape, extending for remedies – solitude, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "elemental" concept isn't extremely educational, while the brisk pace means the discussion of sexual politics or online networks is mainly shallow. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a entirely engaging, trauma-oriented chronicle: a appreciated response to the common preoccupation on investigators and perpetrators. The author shows how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how time and compassion can soften its reverberations.