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Young Freya stays with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that follow, they will rape her, then bury her alive, blend of unease and annoyance darting across their faces as they finally release her from her makeshift coffin.

This could have served as the jarring centrepiece of a novel, but it's merely a single of multiple terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – issued distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to find peace in the contemporary moment.

Debated Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been clouded by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other nominees dropped out in objection at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, family disregard and sexual violence are all examined.

Multiple Narratives of Pain

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on court case as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages revenge with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a parent journeys to a funeral with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to divulge about his family's history.

Pain is accumulated upon pain as wounded survivors seem fated to encounter each other continuously for all time

Interconnected Stories

Relationships abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one story return in cottages, pubs or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to power a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into many languages. His businesslike prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I come to the island is alter my name".

Character Development and Narrative Power

Characters are portrayed in succinct, powerful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a real excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is dulling, and at times nearly comic: suffering is layered with pain, chance on coincidence in a bleak farce in which damaged survivors seem fated to meet each other repeatedly for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Final Assessment

If this sounds less like life and resembling limbo, that is aspect of the author's message. These wounded people are weighed down by the crimes they have endured, stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the influence of his individual experiences of abuse and he describes with sympathy the way his ensemble traverse this risky landscape, reaching out for treatments – isolation, icy sea dips, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" framing isn't particularly educational, while the quick pace means the exploration of social issues or online networks is primarily shallow. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, victim-focused epic: a welcome rebuttal to the usual obsession on detectives and criminals. The author shows how trauma can run through lives and generations, and how time and care can silence its echoes.