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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that follow, they will rape her, then entomb her breathing, combination of unease and annoyance flitting across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her temporary coffin.

This may have functioned as the disturbing focal point of a novel, but it's just one of multiple awful events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront previous suffering and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other candidates dropped out in dissent at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Discussion of trans rights is missing from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the effect of traditional and social media, parental neglect and assault are all investigated.

Distinct Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow moves to a remote Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles 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 past.

Suffering is piled on pain as wounded survivors seem fated to meet each other again and again for forever

Interconnected Accounts

Links multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one account reappear in houses, bars or legal settings in another.

These narrative elements may sound tangled, but the author understands how to propel a narrative – his previous successful Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His businesslike prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I come to the island is alter my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Strength

Characters are portrayed in brief, effective lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after urinating at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap barbs over cups of weak tea.

The author's talent of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a authentic thrill, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times practically comic: pain is layered with trauma, coincidence on coincidence in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem destined to meet each other again and again for all time.

Thematic Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and resembling purgatory, that is part of the author's point. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, stuck in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and spiral and may in turn hurt others. The author has spoken about the effect of his individual experiences of abuse and he describes with sympathy the way his characters navigate this dangerous landscape, reaching out for remedies – solitude, frigid water immersion, forgiveness or bracing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "basic" structure isn't terribly instructive, while the quick pace means the discussion of social issues or social media is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a entirely readable, survivor-centered saga: a valued response to the usual obsession on detectives and criminals. The author demonstrates how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how time and care can quieten its echoes.