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Young Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they violate her, then entomb her breathing, a mix of unease and frustration flitting across their faces as they finally liberate her from her makeshift coffin.

This may have functioned as the disturbing main event of a novel, but it's only one of numerous awful events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been clouded by the addition of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other candidates dropped out in objection at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Debate of trans rights is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, family disregard and sexual violence are all explored.

Four Accounts of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on legal proceedings as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles revenge with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a parent journeys to a funeral with his teenage son, and considers how much to reveal about his family's past.

Trauma is layered with suffering as hurt survivors seem destined to bump into each other repeatedly for eternity

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Relationships proliferate. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one story resurface in houses, bars or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to power a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His businesslike prose sparkles with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are drawn in brief, impactful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after urinating at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's ability of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is dulling, and at times nearly comic: suffering is piled on trauma, coincidence on chance in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to bump into each other again and again for all time.

Thematic Complexity and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds not exactly life and more like limbo, that is aspect of the author's message. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that churn and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has discussed about the effect of his personal experiences of abuse and he depicts with sympathy the way his cast navigate this risky landscape, striving for solutions – seclusion, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "basic" framing isn't particularly informative, while the rapid pace means the discussion of sexual politics or digital platforms is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a entirely readable, trauma-oriented epic: a welcome rebuttal to the common obsession on detectives and criminals. The author shows how trauma can run through lives and generations, and how time and care can soften its echoes.