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Young Freya is visiting her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that follow, 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 makeshift coffin.

This may have functioned as the jarring centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – released distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront previous suffering and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other candidates dropped out in objection at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Debate of trans rights is not present from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of traditional and social media, parental neglect and sexual violence are all explored.

Four Narratives of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya juggles vengeance with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a dad journeys to a funeral with his young son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's history.

Pain is piled on pain as hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other continuously for eternity

Related Narratives

Links abound. We originally see 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. Secondary characters from one story return in cottages, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These storylines may sound complicated, but the author knows how to power 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: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to play with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Personality Portrayal and Narrative Power

Characters are drawn in brief, powerful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is punched by his father after having an accident at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange jabs over cups of watery tea.

The author's knack of carrying you completely into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a authentic excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: pain is layered with pain, coincidence on accident in a grim farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to meet each other continuously for all time.

Conceptual Complexity and Final Assessment

If this sounds different from life and resembling limbo, that is part of the author's message. These damaged people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, caught in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has spoken about the impact of his individual experiences of abuse and he depicts with compassion the way his characters navigate this perilous landscape, extending for remedies – solitude, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't particularly informative, while the brisk pace means the discussion of social issues or online networks is primarily shallow. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a thoroughly engaging, survivor-centered chronicle: a welcome rebuttal to the usual fixation on investigators and criminals. The author shows how pain can affect lives and generations, and how duration and compassion can silence its echoes.