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Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that come after, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, a mix of nervousness and annoyance flitting across their faces as they finally liberate her from her makeshift coffin.

This may have functioned as the disturbing focal point of a novel, but it's just one of many awful events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – released distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate previous suffering and try to discover peace in the contemporary moment.

Controversial Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other candidates dropped out in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of big issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and assault are all explored.

Distinct Narratives of Suffering

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a isolated Irish island after her husband is jailed for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on court case as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya balances vengeance with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a parent travels to a funeral with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's past.

Suffering is piled on suffering as wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other repeatedly for eternity

Linked Stories

Links abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee 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 story resurface in homes, bars or courtrooms in another.

These storylines may sound tangled, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his previous acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His direct prose shines with gripping hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are sketched in concise, impactful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes echo with sad power or observational humour: a boy is struck by his father after urinating at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of watery tea.

The author's ability of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times nearly comic: pain is layered with suffering, coincidence on accident in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to encounter each other repeatedly for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and resembling limbo, that is part of the author's message. These wounded people are oppressed by the crimes they have experienced, trapped in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn hurt others. The author has spoken about the impact of his own experiences of harm and he portrays with compassion the way his characters negotiate this perilous landscape, extending for treatments – seclusion, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't extremely educational, while the brisk pace means the examination of social issues or online networks is mostly shallow. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a thoroughly readable, trauma-oriented saga: a appreciated response to the typical obsession on investigators and criminals. The author demonstrates how trauma can permeate lives and generations, and how years and care can silence its reverberations.