🔗 Share this article

Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the days that ensue, they violate her, then inter her while living, blend of nervousness and frustration flitting across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her makeshift coffin.

This may have functioned as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's only one of many terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – issued individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate past trauma and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Controversial Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's release has been marred by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the preliminary list for a significant 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 trans rights is not present from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and abuse are all examined.

Distinct Narratives of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow moves to a secluded Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player 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 journeys to a funeral with his young son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's history.

Trauma is layered with trauma as wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other continuously for eternity

Related Accounts

Connections 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, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative reappear in homes, taverns or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound complicated, but the author is skilled at how to drive a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His businesslike prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I reach the island is modify my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Power

Characters are drawn in brief, powerful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or insightful humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a authentic excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is dulling, and at times nearly comic: suffering is accumulated upon pain, coincidence on chance in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other repeatedly for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and more like limbo, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the effect of his own experiences of abuse and he depicts with compassion the way his cast traverse this dangerous landscape, extending for treatments – isolation, frigid water immersion, resolution or refreshing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "elemental" concept isn't particularly informative, while the brisk pace means the examination of sexual politics or online networks is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely readable, trauma-oriented chronicle: a valued rebuttal to the typical fixation on authorities and offenders. The author illustrates how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can silence its aftereffects.