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Young Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the weeks that follow, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, a mix of unease and frustration darting across their faces as they ultimately release her from her makeshift coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking main event of a novel, but it's just one of many horrific events in The Elements, which collects four short novels – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate past trauma and try to discover peace in the present moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders pulled out in objection at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Debate of gender identity issues is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of big issues. Homophobia, the effect of traditional and social media, parental neglect and assault are all investigated.

Multiple Stories of Trauma

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow relocates to a isolated Irish island after her husband is jailed for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya balances vengeance with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a parent flies to a funeral with his teenage son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's history.

Pain is piled on pain as wounded survivors seem doomed to meet each other again and again for eternity

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Connections multiply. We originally see 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, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative return in cottages, taverns or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author knows how to drive a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His direct prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I arrive on the island is alter my name".

Personality Development and Narrative Power

Characters are sketched in concise, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with melancholy power or insightful 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 swap barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's ability of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine thrill, for the opening times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: suffering is piled on pain, accident on accident in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to encounter each other repeatedly for forever.

Thematic Complexity and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and more like uncertainty, that is element of the author's thesis. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that agitate and plunge and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the influence of his personal experiences of abuse and he depicts with understanding the way his ensemble traverse this risky landscape, extending for remedies – seclusion, frigid water immersion, forgiveness or invigorating honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "basic" concept isn't terribly informative, while the rapid pace means the exploration of gender dynamics or social media is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely readable, survivor-centered epic: a appreciated response to the usual obsession on investigators and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can run through lives and generations, and how duration and care can silence its aftereffects.