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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that come after, they will rape her, then inter her while living, blend of anxiety and irritation passing across their faces as they eventually free her from her temporary coffin.

This may have functioned as the jarring focal point of a novel, but it's merely a single of numerous awful events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to discover peace in the present moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the preliminary list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other contenders withdrew in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Conversation of gender identity issues is absent from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of traditional and social media, family disregard and assault are all investigated.

Multiple Stories of Pain

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on trial as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya manages vengeance with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a dad flies to a burial with his adolescent son, and considers how much to divulge about his family's background.

Pain is piled on suffering as damaged survivors seem doomed to bump into each other continuously for eternity

Interconnected Accounts

Relationships abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one story return in cottages, bars or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound tangled, but the author understands how to propel a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His businesslike prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to play with fire"; "the initial action I do when I come to the island is modify my name".

Character Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are sketched in brief, powerful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is punched by his father after having an accident at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange jabs over cups of weak tea.

The author's ability of bringing you completely into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an previous story a authentic frisson, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is numbing, and at times almost comic: trauma is accumulated upon trauma, accident on accident in a grim farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to bump into each other continuously for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and more like uncertainty, that is element of the author's point. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, caught in cycles of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the impact of his individual experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with understanding the way his ensemble traverse this dangerous landscape, extending for solutions – solitude, cold ocean swims, forgiveness or invigorating honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "fundamental" framing isn't terribly instructive, while the rapid pace means the examination of social issues or social media is primarily shallow. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly readable, victim-focused epic: a valued riposte to the typical obsession on investigators and offenders. The author illustrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can silence its reverberations.