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Young Freya stays with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she encounters 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 ensue, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, blend of anxiety and annoyance passing across their faces as they ultimately free her from her temporary coffin.

This might have stood as the disturbing focal point of a novel, but it's merely a single of numerous horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – issued distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

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

Discussion of trans rights is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of traditional and social media, family disregard and sexual violence are all explored.

Four Narratives of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya balances retaliation with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a parent flies to a funeral with his teenage son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's history.

Suffering is accumulated upon pain as hurt survivors seem destined to bump into each other again and again for eternity

Related Stories

Connections abound. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one account reappear in cottages, taverns or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound complicated, but the author knows how to propel a narrative – his prior successful Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into many languages. His direct prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Personality Development and Storytelling Power

Characters are drawn in concise, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange jabs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is dulling, and at times nearly comic: pain is piled on trauma, accident on coincidence in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem destined to encounter each other repeatedly for all time.

Conceptual Complexity and Final Assessment

If this sounds different from life and resembling limbo, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that churn and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the influence of his personal experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with sympathy the way his cast traverse this dangerous landscape, extending for treatments – isolation, cold ocean swims, resolution or refreshing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" framing isn't terribly informative, while the rapid pace means the exploration of sexual politics or digital platforms is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a completely readable, victim-focused chronicle: a valued riposte to the common obsession on investigators and perpetrators. The author shows how trauma can permeate lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can silence its echoes.