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Young Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she encounters 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 time that ensue, they will rape her, then inter her while living, combination of anxiety and annoyance passing across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her makeshift coffin.

This could have served as the jarring main event of a novel, but it's just one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront historical pain and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

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

Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is missing from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, caregiver abandonment and sexual violence are all explored.

Multiple Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya manages retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a father travels to a memorial service with his young son, and ponders how much to disclose about his family's history.

Trauma is piled on pain as hurt survivors seem destined to bump into each other again and again for forever

Linked Stories

Connections proliferate. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one narrative return in cottages, taverns or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound complicated, but the author knows how to propel a narrative – his prior acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into many languages. His businesslike prose bristles with gripping hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I come to the island is alter my name".

Character Portrayal and Narrative Power

Characters are drawn in succinct, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or perceptive humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of weak tea.

The author's knack of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a genuine frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times nearly comic: trauma is layered with pain, coincidence on coincidence in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem destined to meet each other repeatedly for forever.

Conceptual Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and resembling uncertainty, that is element of the author's message. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, caught in cycles of thought and behavior that agitate and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has discussed about the effect of his personal experiences of harm and he depicts with compassion the way his characters traverse this perilous landscape, reaching out for solutions – seclusion, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "basic" framing isn't terribly educational, while the rapid pace means the examination of sexual politics or social media is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a completely accessible, victim-focused saga: a appreciated rebuttal to the typical fixation on investigators and criminals. The author shows how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how duration and care can silence its echoes.