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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they will rape her, then entomb her breathing, blend of anxiety and irritation flitting across their faces as they eventually release her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's merely a single of multiple awful events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – released distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront past trauma and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other nominees pulled out in dissent at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Discussion of gender identity issues is not present from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, caregiver abandonment and assault are all examined.

Multiple Accounts of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya balances vengeance with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a parent journeys to a burial with his teenage son, and considers how much to divulge about his family's history.

Pain is piled on pain as hurt survivors seem fated to encounter each other again and again for all time

Related Accounts

Relationships multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one account resurface in homes, bars or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to drive a narrative – his earlier popular Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His businesslike prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Personality Portrayal and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in succinct, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes echo with sad power or observational 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 jabs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times practically comic: trauma is layered with trauma, accident on coincidence in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem destined to bump into each other again and again for all time.

Conceptual Depth and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and closer to limbo, that is part of the author's point. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the effect of his personal experiences of abuse and he portrays with sympathy the way his ensemble negotiate this dangerous landscape, extending for remedies – solitude, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "fundamental" framing isn't extremely educational, while the rapid pace means the exploration of social issues or social media is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a entirely engaging, victim-focused epic: a welcome riposte to the common fixation on detectives and perpetrators. The author illustrates how pain can affect lives and generations, and how time and tenderness can silence its echoes.