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Young Freya stays with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that follow, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, a mix of nervousness and frustration flitting across their faces as they finally liberate her from her improvised coffin.

This might have stood as the disturbing focal point of a novel, but it's just one of numerous awful events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – released distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront historical pain and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

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

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of traditional and social media, caregiver abandonment and assault are all examined.

Distinct Accounts of Suffering

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow moves to a isolated Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages revenge with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a dad flies to a memorial service with his teenage son, and ponders how much to disclose about his family's history.

Pain is layered with pain as wounded survivors seem destined to meet each other again and again for eternity

Related Accounts

Connections multiply. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's jury 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. Minor characters from one account reappear in cottages, taverns 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 millions, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His straightforward prose bristles with gripping hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to play with fire"; "the initial action I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Character Portrayal and Narrative Strength

Characters are sketched in succinct, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of bringing you completely into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times practically comic: pain is piled on suffering, coincidence on chance in a grim farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other again and again for forever.

Conceptual Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and more like uncertainty, that is part of the author's point. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and spiral and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the influence of his individual experiences of harm and he portrays with compassion the way his ensemble negotiate this perilous landscape, extending for solutions – seclusion, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "fundamental" framing isn't extremely educational, while the quick pace means the discussion of gender dynamics or online networks is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely readable, victim-focused chronicle: a valued riposte to the typical fixation on authorities and perpetrators. The author shows how pain can permeate lives and generations, and how duration and care can silence its echoes.