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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that follow, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, combination of anxiety and irritation flitting across their faces as they eventually release her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the jarring focal point of a novel, but it's only one of multiple awful events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – published individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other nominees dropped out in protest at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, family disregard and assault are all examined.

Four Stories of Pain

• In Water, a grieving 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 trial as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya balances retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a father flies to a funeral with his teenage son, and ponders how much to disclose about his family's past.

Trauma is layered with pain as hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other again and again for forever

Related Stories

Connections proliferate. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's group 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. Supporting characters from one narrative reappear in houses, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These storylines may sound complex, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His straightforward prose sparkles with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I arrive on the island is change my name".

Personality Portrayal and Narrative Power

Characters are sketched in succinct, powerful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or perceptive humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange barbs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's knack of bringing you fully into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic thrill, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is dulling, and at times nearly comic: pain is layered with trauma, coincidence on chance in a dark farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to bump into each other continuously for forever.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds less like life and resembling purgatory, that is element of the author's message. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, caught in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and spiral and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the effect of his individual experiences of mistreatment and he depicts with compassion the way his ensemble negotiate this dangerous landscape, striving for remedies – seclusion, cold ocean swims, resolution or bracing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "fundamental" concept isn't extremely instructive, while the brisk pace means the examination of social issues or digital platforms is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely engaging, victim-focused saga: a welcome rebuttal to the typical preoccupation on detectives and offenders. The author demonstrates how trauma can permeate lives and generations, and how years and compassion can quieten its echoes.