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Young Freya is visiting her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they sexually assault her, then entomb her breathing, combination of unease and annoyance flitting across their faces as they eventually release her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the disturbing main event of a novel, but it's merely a single of many terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four short novels – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate past trauma and try to find peace in the current moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees pulled out in objection at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Conversation of gender identity issues is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of traditional and social media, family disregard and abuse are all investigated.

Multiple Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles vengeance with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a parent flies to a burial with his young son, and considers how much to disclose about his family's past.

Suffering is accumulated upon suffering as hurt survivors seem fated to encounter each other continuously for forever

Related Stories

Links proliferate. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one story return in cottages, taverns or legal settings in another.

These narrative elements may sound complicated, but the author is skilled at how to power a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into many languages. His straightforward prose bristles with gripping hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Character Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in concise, powerful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes echo with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange jabs over cups of watery tea.

The author's ability of bringing you completely into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a real excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: pain is piled on pain, chance on coincidence in a dark farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to meet each other repeatedly for eternity.

Conceptual Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and more like limbo, that is element of the author's thesis. These hurt people are oppressed by the crimes they have suffered, stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the impact of his own experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with sympathy the way his ensemble traverse this risky landscape, striving for remedies – seclusion, icy sea dips, resolution or invigorating honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "basic" concept isn't extremely instructive, while the quick pace means the exploration of sexual politics or online networks is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely accessible, survivor-centered saga: a valued rebuttal to the common fixation on detectives and offenders. The author illustrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how time and compassion can silence its aftereffects.