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Young Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that come after, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, combination of anxiety and frustration darting across their faces as they ultimately free her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of many awful events in The Elements, which assembles four novellas – issued individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Debated Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other contenders withdrew in dissent at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, family disregard and abuse are all explored.

Four Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a isolated Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on court case as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages revenge with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father journeys to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to divulge about his family's past.

Suffering is accumulated upon pain as damaged survivors seem destined to bump into each other again and again for all time

Related Narratives

Relationships multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one story reappear in cottages, bars or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound complicated, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his previous successful Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been rendered into numerous languages. His straightforward prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to toy with fire"; "the primary step I do when I come to the island is modify my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Strength

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

The author's ability of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times nearly comic: suffering is layered with pain, chance on accident in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to meet each other continuously for forever.

Conceptual Depth and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and resembling limbo, that is part of the author's point. These hurt people are weighed down by the crimes they have endured, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that stir and spiral and may in turn harm others. The author has discussed about the influence of his individual experiences of abuse and he depicts with understanding the way his cast traverse this dangerous landscape, reaching out for treatments – seclusion, frigid water immersion, forgiveness or refreshing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" concept isn't particularly informative, while the brisk pace means the examination of gender dynamics or digital platforms is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly readable, survivor-centered chronicle: a welcome rebuttal to the usual preoccupation on authorities and criminals. The author illustrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how duration and care can silence its echoes.