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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her self-absorbed 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 come after, they violate her, then inter her while living, blend of unease and frustration passing across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her improvised coffin.

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

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders pulled out in protest at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Discussion of trans rights is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and abuse are all examined.

Multiple Accounts of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on court case as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a father flies to a burial with his adolescent son, and considers how much to divulge about his family's history.

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

Linked Narratives

Links abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative reappear in cottages, taverns or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his previous successful Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His straightforward prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to play with fire"; "the primary step I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Personality Portrayal and Narrative Power

Characters are sketched in succinct, powerful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or perceptive humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of carrying you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the return 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 desensitizing, and at times nearly comic: pain is piled on trauma, coincidence on chance in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to encounter each other repeatedly for all time.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds not exactly life and closer to limbo, that is aspect of the author's point. These wounded people are weighed down by the crimes they have suffered, caught in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the influence of his individual experiences of harm and he describes with compassion the way his cast negotiate this perilous landscape, reaching out for solutions – solitude, frigid water immersion, resolution or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "basic" concept isn't extremely informative, while the brisk pace means the examination of sexual politics or social media is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a completely engaging, victim-focused saga: a welcome riposte to the typical obsession on investigators and criminals. The author shows how pain can run through lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can quieten its aftereffects.