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Young Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that follow, they will rape her, then bury her alive, a mix of nervousness and annoyance darting across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her temporary coffin.

This may have functioned as the disturbing focal point of a novel, but it's only one of numerous terrible events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – issued individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate past trauma and try to discover peace in the contemporary moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders withdrew in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Conversation of trans rights is not present from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, parental neglect and assault are all explored.

Four Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow moves to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on trial as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya manages revenge with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a father flies to a memorial service with his teenage son, and considers how much to disclose about his family's history.

Suffering is accumulated upon pain as damaged survivors seem destined to bump into each other continuously for forever

Linked Accounts

Links abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative reappear in houses, taverns or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His straightforward prose bristles with suspenseful hooks: "ultimately, 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 Narrative Strength

Characters are sketched in succinct, impactful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is hit by his father after having an accident at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange barbs over cups of weak tea.

The author's knack of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine frisson, for the initial several times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: pain is accumulated upon pain, accident on coincidence in a bleak farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to bump into each other repeatedly for all time.

Conceptual Complexity and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and more like uncertainty, that is aspect of the author's point. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have experienced, stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the impact of his individual experiences of mistreatment and he depicts with sympathy the way his characters traverse this perilous landscape, reaching out for solutions – solitude, icy sea dips, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't particularly informative, while the quick pace means the examination of social issues or social media is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely accessible, victim-focused chronicle: a valued riposte to the typical fixation on detectives and criminals. The author shows how trauma can affect lives and generations, and how duration and care can silence its echoes.