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Young Freya stays with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that ensue, they will rape her, then bury her alive, combination of anxiety and annoyance flitting across their faces as they eventually free her from her temporary coffin.

This might have stood as the jarring centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate previous suffering and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Controversial Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other candidates withdrew in protest at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of gender identity issues is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the impact of traditional and social media, family disregard and assault are all investigated.

Four Narratives of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow moves to a remote Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on court case as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya balances revenge with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a father flies to a burial with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's history.

Trauma is layered with suffering as damaged survivors seem fated to bump into each other repeatedly for forever

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Relationships multiply. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative resurface in cottages, taverns or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound tangled, but the author understands how to propel a narrative – his previous acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His direct prose sparkles with gripping hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to toy with fire"; "the initial action I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are portrayed in concise, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes echo with sad power or observational 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 barbs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine frisson, for the initial several times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times almost comic: suffering is accumulated upon trauma, accident on coincidence in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to meet each other continuously for forever.

Thematic Complexity and Final Assessment

If this sounds less like life and closer to limbo, that is element of the author's thesis. These hurt people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the effect of his individual experiences of abuse and he portrays with sympathy the way his ensemble traverse this perilous landscape, striving for remedies – solitude, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" concept isn't particularly informative, while the quick pace means the discussion of sexual politics or social media is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly readable, trauma-oriented epic: a welcome riposte to the usual preoccupation on authorities and offenders. The author illustrates how trauma can run through lives and generations, and how years and compassion can quieten its reverberations.