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Young Freya is visiting her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that come after, they will rape her, then inter her while living, a mix of nervousness and annoyance darting across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her makeshift 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 assembles four short novels – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate past trauma and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the preliminary list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders dropped out in dissent at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is missing from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. Homophobia, the impact of traditional and social media, parental neglect and abuse are all investigated.

Distinct Accounts of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a isolated Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on legal proceedings as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya balances revenge with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a parent journeys to a burial with his young son, and wonders how much to disclose about his family's past.

Pain is piled on pain as damaged survivors seem destined to meet each other again and again for eternity

Related Narratives

Relationships multiply. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative return in cottages, bars or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author knows how to power a narrative – his earlier popular Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into many languages. His straightforward prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to experiment with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is modify my name".

Personality Development and Storytelling Strength

Characters are portrayed in succinct, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with sad power or insightful humour: a boy is hit by his father after having an accident at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of weak tea.

The author's ability of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine frisson, for the initial several times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is dulling, and at times practically comic: trauma is accumulated upon pain, coincidence on chance in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem destined to encounter each other repeatedly for forever.

Conceptual Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and closer to uncertainty, that is element of the author's message. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have experienced, caught in routines of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the impact of his own experiences of harm and he describes with understanding the way his ensemble negotiate this dangerous landscape, extending for treatments – seclusion, icy sea dips, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't terribly instructive, while the quick pace means the exploration of gender dynamics or online networks is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a thoroughly readable, trauma-oriented epic: a welcome response to the typical obsession on investigators and criminals. The author demonstrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how time and compassion can soften its echoes.