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Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, combination of nervousness and annoyance darting across their faces as they finally liberate her from her temporary coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's merely a single of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate previous suffering and try to achieve peace in the present moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

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

Conversation of trans rights is missing from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the influence of traditional and social media, family disregard and abuse are all explored.

Four Stories of Pain

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya balances retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a parent journeys to a memorial service with his young son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's history.

Pain is piled on pain as damaged survivors seem doomed to meet each other continuously for all time

Related Narratives

Relationships abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one story resurface in houses, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These narrative elements may sound tangled, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His direct prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is alter my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Power

Characters are drawn in brief, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with tragic power or perceptive humour: a boy is hit by his father after urinating at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange barbs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of carrying you completely into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a authentic frisson, for the initial several times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is dulling, and at times practically comic: pain is layered with trauma, accident on accident in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to encounter each other continuously for forever.

Thematic Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and resembling uncertainty, that is aspect of the author's point. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the effect of his own experiences of harm and he describes with understanding the way his characters navigate this risky landscape, striving for treatments – isolation, cold ocean swims, forgiveness or bracing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't terribly instructive, while the quick pace means the examination of social issues or online networks is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a completely engaging, survivor-centered chronicle: a welcome response to the usual preoccupation on detectives and offenders. The author demonstrates how pain can affect lives and generations, and how duration and care can silence its reverberations.