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Young Freya is visiting her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that ensue, they will rape her, then bury her alive, blend of anxiety and frustration flitting across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her makeshift coffin.

This could have served as the disturbing main event of a novel, but it's only one of many horrific events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – released distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront historical pain and try to find peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the preliminary list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other contenders withdrew in dissent at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Discussion of trans rights is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of big issues. Homophobia, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, caregiver abandonment and abuse are all explored.

Four Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow moves to a remote Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on court case as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a dad travels to a burial with his young son, and ponders how much to divulge about his family's background.

Suffering is piled on pain as wounded survivors seem doomed to bump into each other again and again for all time

Linked Stories

Links multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one account resurface in cottages, bars or legal settings in another.

These storylines may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to power a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His direct prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to play with fire"; "the initial action I do when I arrive on the island is change my name".

Personality Development and Storytelling Strength

Characters are portrayed in brief, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes ring with sad power or insightful humour: a boy is hit by his father after having an accident at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap insults over cups of weak tea.

The author's talent of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic thrill, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times almost comic: suffering is piled on trauma, chance on coincidence in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem doomed to bump into each other again and again for all time.

Thematic Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and closer to uncertainty, that is part of the author's point. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, stuck in routines of thought and behavior that churn and spiral and may in turn hurt others. The author has discussed about the effect of his own experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with compassion the way his characters navigate this risky landscape, extending for solutions – solitude, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "basic" concept isn't terribly instructive, while the brisk pace means the examination of social issues or social media is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a entirely engaging, victim-focused epic: a valued riposte to the typical preoccupation on investigators and offenders. The author shows how pain can run through lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can silence its aftereffects.