🔗 Share this article

Young Freya stays with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she encounters teenage twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the time that follow, they will rape her, then inter her while living, blend of anxiety and annoyance passing across their faces as they finally release her from her makeshift coffin.

This may have functioned as the jarring main event of a novel, but it's just one of many horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate previous suffering and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's issuance has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other candidates dropped out in objection at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of gender identity issues is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, caregiver abandonment and assault are all explored.

Four Accounts of Suffering

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya balances vengeance with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a dad travels to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's past.

Trauma is piled on trauma as damaged survivors seem doomed to bump into each other repeatedly for all time

Linked Accounts

Relationships abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one account return in homes, taverns or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound complicated, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into many languages. His straightforward prose shines with gripping hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are sketched in brief, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange jabs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's ability of carrying you completely into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an previous story a authentic excitement, for the initial several times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is dulling, and at times almost comic: suffering is accumulated upon pain, accident on coincidence in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other again and again for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and more like limbo, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These wounded people are oppressed by the crimes they have suffered, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has discussed about the impact of his individual experiences of abuse and he describes with understanding the way his cast navigate this dangerous landscape, extending for solutions – isolation, cold ocean swims, resolution or refreshing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "basic" concept isn't extremely informative, while the rapid pace means the exploration of sexual politics or online networks is mostly shallow. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely accessible, trauma-oriented epic: a appreciated response to the common fixation on detectives and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how years and care can silence its reverberations.