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Twelve-year-old Freya stays 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 will rape her, then bury her alive, a mix of anxiety and frustration flitting across their faces as they ultimately free her from her temporary coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's just one of multiple awful events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront historical pain and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been marred by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees pulled out in protest at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Discussion of gender identity issues is absent from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of big issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and abuse are all investigated.

Four Stories of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on court case as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a parent travels to a burial with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's background.

Pain is layered with pain as hurt survivors seem destined to meet each other again and again for forever

Interconnected Narratives

Connections 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 homes, taverns or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound complex, but the author knows how to drive a narrative – his previous acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been rendered into numerous languages. His direct prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to experiment with fire"; "the first thing I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are sketched in succinct, impactful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with tragic power or perceptive humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange insults over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of bringing you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times almost comic: suffering is piled on suffering, chance on coincidence in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem destined to encounter each other again and again for forever.

Conceptual Depth and Final Assessment

If this sounds not exactly life and more like purgatory, that is aspect of the author's message. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in cycles of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the influence of his individual experiences of mistreatment and he describes with compassion the way his cast traverse this perilous landscape, striving for solutions – isolation, frigid water immersion, forgiveness or refreshing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "fundamental" concept isn't extremely instructive, while the rapid pace means the examination of gender dynamics or online networks is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly engaging, victim-focused saga: a valued rebuttal to the usual obsession on investigators and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can run through lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can soften its aftereffects.