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Twelve-year-old Freya is visiting her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that come after, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, a mix of nervousness and annoyance darting across their faces as they finally release her from her temporary coffin.

This may have functioned as the disturbing main event of a novel, but it's just one of multiple awful events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other contenders withdrew in objection at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Debate of trans rights is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and abuse are all investigated.

Distinct Accounts of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a isolated Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya balances retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a dad journeys to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and considers how much to disclose about his family's history.

Trauma is layered with suffering as wounded survivors seem doomed to meet each other continuously for forever

Interconnected Accounts

Connections abound. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's jury 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 story resurface in homes, bars or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound complicated, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his earlier popular Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His businesslike prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to toy with fire"; "the initial action I do when I come to the island is modify my name".

Personality Development and Storytelling Power

Characters are sketched in concise, effective lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes ring with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after having an accident at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange insults over cups of diluted tea.

The author's ability of carrying you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a authentic excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: trauma is piled on pain, chance on coincidence in a grim farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other again and again for all time.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds different from life and resembling purgatory, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These hurt people are weighed down by the crimes they have endured, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn damage others. The author has discussed about the impact of his individual experiences of abuse and he portrays with sympathy the way his characters negotiate this dangerous landscape, striving for solutions – isolation, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" framing isn't particularly instructive, while the brisk pace means the discussion of social issues or social media is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly readable, survivor-centered chronicle: a valued rebuttal to the common obsession on investigators and perpetrators. The author demonstrates how trauma can affect lives and generations, and how time and care can silence its echoes.