🔗 Share this article

Young Freya spends time with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she comes across 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 weeks that follow, they sexually assault her, then entomb her breathing, combination of nervousness and annoyance passing across their faces as they finally liberate her from her improvised coffin.

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

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other candidates withdrew in protest at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of gender identity issues is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. Homophobia, the impact of traditional and social media, family disregard and sexual violence are all examined.

Four Narratives of Pain

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow moves to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya manages vengeance with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a parent travels to a burial with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to disclose about his family's background.

Trauma is layered with pain as damaged survivors seem fated to bump into each other repeatedly for eternity

Related Accounts

Relationships abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who reappears 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 homes, bars or courtrooms in another.

These storylines may sound complicated, but the author knows how to propel a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His straightforward prose bristles with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the primary step I do when I come to the island is modify my name".

Personality Portrayal and Narrative Power

Characters are portrayed in succinct, impactful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or insightful humour: a boy is hit by his father after urinating at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange jabs over cups of weak tea.

The author's ability of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times practically comic: trauma is piled on suffering, coincidence on chance in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem fated to bump into each other continuously for eternity.

Thematic Complexity and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds not exactly life and more like limbo, that is part of the author's point. These damaged people are weighed down by the crimes they have endured, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the effect of his individual experiences of mistreatment and he depicts with sympathy the way his ensemble navigate this risky landscape, striving for remedies – solitude, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't extremely informative, while the brisk pace means the discussion of social issues or social media is mostly shallow. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely accessible, victim-focused epic: a valued rebuttal to the usual fixation on authorities and perpetrators. The author demonstrates how trauma can permeate lives and generations, and how time and tenderness can soften its echoes.