🔗 Share this article

Young Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the days that come after, they will rape her, then entomb her breathing, blend of nervousness and irritation passing across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her makeshift coffin.

This could have served as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of numerous terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novellas – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront previous suffering and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other candidates dropped out in objection at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the influence of traditional and social media, caregiver abandonment and sexual violence are all examined.

Multiple Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on trial as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a parent journeys to a funeral with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to divulge about his family's background.

Trauma is accumulated upon trauma as wounded survivors seem doomed to bump into each other again and again for forever

Linked Accounts

Connections proliferate. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one narrative reappear in houses, pubs or judicial venues in another.

These storylines may sound tangled, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into many languages. His businesslike prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to play with fire"; "the primary step I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

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

The author's talent of bringing you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a real frisson, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: pain is layered with pain, accident on accident in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to bump into each other continuously for forever.

Thematic Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and closer to uncertainty, that is aspect of the author's message. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have experienced, caught in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the influence of his own experiences of abuse and he depicts with compassion the way his characters negotiate this risky landscape, reaching out for solutions – seclusion, frigid water immersion, resolution or refreshing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't extremely instructive, while the brisk pace means the discussion of social issues or online networks is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a entirely accessible, victim-focused chronicle: a appreciated riposte to the typical obsession on detectives and perpetrators. The author demonstrates how trauma can permeate lives and generations, and how time and care can silence its echoes.