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Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she encounters teenage twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they will rape her, then inter her while living, blend of anxiety and irritation passing across their faces as they ultimately release her from her improvised coffin.

This may have functioned as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's just one of many terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four short novels – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate previous suffering and try to achieve peace in the present moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other contenders withdrew in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Debate of trans rights is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of significant issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and assault are all examined.

Distinct Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow moves to a isolated Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles vengeance with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a dad flies to a burial with his teenage son, and considers how much to reveal about his family's past.

Pain is piled on pain as wounded survivors seem destined to meet each other continuously for forever

Related Stories

Relationships multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who reappears 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 cottages, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These narrative elements may sound complicated, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into many languages. His businesslike prose sparkles with gripping hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I come to the island is alter my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Power

Characters are sketched in succinct, impactful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade insults over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of transporting you completely into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a genuine excitement, for the initial several times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: pain is accumulated upon pain, chance on coincidence in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem fated to bump into each other repeatedly for forever.

Thematic Depth and Final Assessment

If this sounds different from life and more like purgatory, that is part of the author's point. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, caught in patterns of thought and behavior that stir and spiral and may in turn harm others. The author has discussed about the effect of his individual experiences of abuse and he describes with sympathy the way his ensemble negotiate this dangerous landscape, reaching out for treatments – solitude, cold ocean swims, forgiveness or refreshing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "basic" framing isn't particularly informative, while the brisk pace means the exploration of social issues or social media is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a entirely engaging, victim-focused saga: a welcome response to the usual fixation on investigators and criminals. The author illustrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how time and compassion can quieten its echoes.