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Young Freya is visiting her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she meets 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 ensue, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, combination of nervousness and annoyance darting across their faces as they finally free her from her improvised coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's merely a single of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate previous suffering and try to find peace in the present moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other nominees dropped out in protest at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is not present from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of conventional and digital platforms, parental neglect and assault are all investigated.

Multiple Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on court case as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles revenge with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a parent travels to a funeral with his teenage son, and ponders how much to disclose about his family's history.

Pain is piled on suffering as damaged survivors seem doomed to bump into each other continuously for all time

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Relationships multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative reappear in homes, pubs or legal settings in another.

These storylines may sound tangled, but the author knows how to drive a narrative – his previous successful Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His straightforward prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I arrive on the island is alter my name".

Character Development and Narrative Power

Characters are portrayed in succinct, powerful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or observational humour: a boy is hit by his father after having an accident at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade insults over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a real excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is numbing, and at times practically comic: suffering is layered with pain, accident on accident in a dark farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to encounter each other repeatedly for all time.

Conceptual Depth and Final Assessment

If this sounds different from life and resembling purgatory, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These hurt people are weighed down by the crimes they have endured, trapped in cycles of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the impact of his own experiences of abuse and he depicts with compassion the way his ensemble traverse this risky landscape, reaching out for treatments – solitude, cold ocean swims, resolution or invigorating honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" concept isn't extremely instructive, while the quick pace means the discussion of sexual politics or social media is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly readable, survivor-centered epic: a valued rebuttal to the common preoccupation on investigators and criminals. The author illustrates how suffering can run through lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can silence its reverberations.