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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that follow, they will rape her, then entomb her breathing, combination of unease and annoyance darting across their faces as they finally free her from her temporary coffin.

This may have functioned as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's only one of many terrible events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to find peace in the present moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other nominees pulled out in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is not present from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and assault are all explored.

Four Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on legal proceedings as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages revenge with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father flies to a funeral with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's past.

Suffering is accumulated upon trauma as hurt survivors seem doomed to bump into each other continuously for forever

Related Stories

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

These storylines may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into dozens languages. His businesslike prose sparkles with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to play with fire"; "the primary step I do when I arrive on the island is alter my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Strength

Characters are drawn in succinct, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes ring with tragic power or perceptive humour: a boy is hit by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange jabs over cups of watery tea.

The author's ability of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic thrill, for the initial several times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is dulling, and at times almost comic: suffering is layered with suffering, accident on coincidence in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to meet each other repeatedly for all time.

Conceptual Complexity and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and resembling limbo, that is element of the author's message. These damaged people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, stuck in routines of thought and behavior that churn and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the impact of his own experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with understanding the way his characters navigate this risky landscape, reaching out for treatments – solitude, icy sea dips, resolution or invigorating honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "basic" framing isn't particularly informative, while the quick pace means the examination of sexual politics or digital platforms is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely readable, victim-focused epic: a appreciated response to the usual preoccupation on authorities and perpetrators. The author illustrates how trauma can run through lives and generations, and how time and care can silence its reverberations.