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Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that follow, they violate her, then inter her while living, combination of anxiety and annoyance passing across their faces as they eventually release her from her improvised coffin.

This could have served as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of many awful events in The Elements, which collects four short novels – published separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to find peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other contenders withdrew in dissent at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. Homophobia, the effect of traditional and social media, family disregard and abuse are all investigated.

Multiple Stories of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on trial as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya balances revenge with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a father journeys to a funeral with his young son, and considers how much to disclose about his family's history.

Trauma is piled on trauma as wounded survivors seem destined to meet each other continuously for all time

Linked Stories

Connections proliferate. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one narrative return in cottages, taverns or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound complex, but the author knows how to propel a narrative – his prior acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been rendered into numerous languages. His businesslike prose shines with gripping hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to play with fire"; "the primary step I do when I reach the island is modify my name".

Personality Development and Narrative Power

Characters are drawn in concise, impactful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or perceptive humour: a boy is struck by his father after urinating at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade insults over cups of weak tea.

The author's knack of transporting you completely into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a genuine frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: pain is accumulated upon trauma, accident on chance in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to meet each other again and again for forever.

Conceptual Depth and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and closer to uncertainty, that is part of the author's thesis. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, caught in routines of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the impact of his own experiences of abuse and he describes with understanding the way his cast traverse this dangerous landscape, striving for solutions – isolation, icy sea dips, resolution or bracing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "elemental" concept isn't particularly informative, while the rapid pace means the discussion of gender dynamics or digital platforms is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a completely accessible, survivor-centered saga: a appreciated rebuttal to the typical fixation on detectives and offenders. The author illustrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how time and compassion can soften its aftereffects.