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Young Freya is visiting her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that ensue, they will rape her, then inter her while living, combination of unease and frustration flitting across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her makeshift coffin.

This may have functioned as the disturbing main event of a novel, but it's merely a single of numerous terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – published separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate past trauma and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other nominees pulled out in protest at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of conventional and digital platforms, parental neglect and assault are all explored.

Four Accounts of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow moves to a isolated Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on court case as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya manages retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a dad journeys to a memorial service with his young son, and considers how much to divulge about his family's history.

Pain is piled on pain as hurt survivors seem fated to bump into each other again and again for eternity

Interconnected Stories

Connections proliferate. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative return in houses, taverns or legal settings in another.

These storylines may sound tangled, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his prior successful Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into many languages. His businesslike prose shines with gripping hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Character Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in concise, effective lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with sad power or observational humour: a boy is struck by his father after having an accident at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's ability of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a genuine thrill, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times practically comic: trauma is layered with suffering, coincidence on coincidence in a dark farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to bump into each other repeatedly for eternity.

Thematic Complexity and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and resembling purgatory, that is element of the author's point. These damaged people are weighed down by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has discussed about the impact of his personal experiences of harm and he describes with understanding the way his characters traverse this risky landscape, striving for solutions – isolation, cold ocean swims, forgiveness or invigorating honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "elemental" concept isn't extremely educational, while the quick pace means the discussion of social issues or digital platforms is primarily shallow. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely readable, survivor-centered saga: a valued response to the common preoccupation on authorities and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can run through lives and generations, and how time and care can silence its reverberations.