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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, blend of unease and irritation darting across their faces as they ultimately release her from her improvised coffin.

This could have served as the jarring centrepiece of a novel, but it's just one of multiple awful events in The Elements, which collects four short novels – issued distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate past trauma and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's release has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other candidates withdrew in dissent at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Debate of gender identity issues is not present from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of significant issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, caregiver abandonment and sexual violence are all examined.

Distinct Stories of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya juggles revenge with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a father flies to a funeral with his adolescent son, and considers how much to reveal about his family's past.

Suffering is piled on suffering as damaged survivors seem destined to meet each other continuously for all time

Interconnected Narratives

Relationships proliferate. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative reappear in houses, bars or judicial venues in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his previous successful Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been rendered into numerous languages. His straightforward prose bristles with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to play with fire"; "the first thing I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Power

Characters are drawn in concise, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes ring with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is hit by his father after urinating at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of weak tea.

The author's talent of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an previous story a authentic excitement, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is dulling, and at times practically comic: pain is accumulated upon pain, chance on coincidence in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem destined to meet each other continuously for eternity.

Thematic Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and resembling uncertainty, that is part of the author's thesis. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, stuck in routines of thought and behavior that stir and spiral and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the effect of his individual experiences of abuse and he portrays with compassion the way his cast traverse this perilous landscape, reaching out for remedies – seclusion, icy sea dips, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't particularly instructive, while the rapid pace means the examination of gender dynamics or online networks is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely accessible, survivor-centered saga: a valued riposte to the common fixation on detectives and offenders. The author shows how pain can affect lives and generations, and how duration and compassion can quieten its aftereffects.