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Young Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the time that ensue, they violate her, then entomb her breathing, a mix of unease and annoyance darting across their faces as they ultimately release her from her makeshift coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's merely a single of many terrible events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront previous suffering and try to find peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders pulled out in objection at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of traditional and social media, family disregard and sexual violence are all explored.

Four Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father journeys to a memorial service with his teenage son, and ponders how much to divulge about his family's history.

Pain is piled on pain as wounded survivors seem destined to encounter each other repeatedly for eternity

Linked Narratives

Relationships multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative return in houses, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These narrative elements may sound complex, but the author understands how to propel a narrative – his prior acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His direct prose bristles with gripping hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I arrive on the island is alter my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Strength

Characters are sketched in succinct, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes echo with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange jabs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's knack of carrying you completely into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine thrill, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: pain is layered with pain, coincidence on chance in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem fated to encounter each other again and again for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and resembling uncertainty, that is element of the author's point. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have experienced, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the effect of his individual experiences of harm and he portrays with sympathy the way his characters navigate this dangerous landscape, striving for solutions – solitude, icy sea dips, forgiveness or refreshing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "basic" framing isn't terribly educational, while the quick pace means the examination of sexual politics or digital platforms is mostly shallow. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly readable, survivor-centered saga: a appreciated response to the typical obsession on authorities and perpetrators. The author illustrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how years and compassion can silence its echoes.