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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that follow, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, a mix of anxiety and irritation flitting across their faces as they eventually free her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate previous suffering and try to find peace in the current moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees withdrew in protest at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is missing from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. Homophobia, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and assault are all investigated.

Four Accounts of Pain

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow moves to a isolated Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya manages retaliation with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father travels to a burial with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to reveal about his family's history.

Trauma is layered with suffering as damaged survivors seem fated to meet each other again and again for eternity

Linked Accounts

Connections proliferate. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's group 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 houses, bars or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound tangled, but the author knows how to drive a narrative – his previous successful Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been rendered into numerous languages. His businesslike prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to play with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Character Portrayal and Narrative Power

Characters are drawn in succinct, impactful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is punched by his father after having an accident at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's knack of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic thrill, for the opening times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times practically comic: pain is accumulated upon suffering, accident on coincidence in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to encounter each other repeatedly for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Final Assessment

If this sounds different from life and resembling limbo, that is element of the author's message. These hurt people are oppressed by the crimes they have experienced, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has discussed about the influence of his personal experiences of mistreatment and he depicts with understanding the way his ensemble negotiate this perilous landscape, extending for remedies – isolation, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't extremely educational, while the quick pace means the examination of sexual politics or digital platforms is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely readable, survivor-centered saga: a appreciated riposte to the usual obsession on detectives and perpetrators. The author shows how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how duration and compassion can soften its echoes.