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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she encounters teenage twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they will rape her, then bury her alive, a mix of nervousness and frustration flitting across their faces as they finally free her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's just one of many terrible events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – published individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate previous suffering and try to discover peace in the contemporary moment.

Controversial Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's issuance has been clouded by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a notable 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.

Discussion of trans rights is missing from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, family disregard and abuse are all examined.

Multiple Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a isolated Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages revenge with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father travels to a funeral with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's background.

Pain is layered with suffering as wounded survivors seem doomed to bump into each other again and again for all time

Interconnected Stories

Links multiply. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one account return in cottages, pubs or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound tangled, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His straightforward prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Character Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in succinct, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of weak tea.

The author's ability of carrying you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine thrill, for the initial several times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: suffering is piled on pain, coincidence on coincidence in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem destined to bump into each other repeatedly for all time.

Conceptual Depth and Final Assessment

If this sounds different from life and resembling limbo, that is aspect of the author's point. These hurt people are weighed down by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that stir and spiral and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the influence of his own experiences of harm and he portrays with sympathy the way his characters navigate this dangerous landscape, extending for treatments – solitude, icy sea dips, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't particularly educational, while the rapid pace means the exploration of gender dynamics or online networks is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely engaging, trauma-oriented saga: a appreciated response to the usual preoccupation on authorities and criminals. The author shows how trauma can affect lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can silence its echoes.