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Young Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that follow, they violate her, then bury her alive, combination of nervousness and frustration passing across their faces as they finally free her from her makeshift coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's only one of multiple terrible events in The Elements, which collects four short novels – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other candidates withdrew in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is missing from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and assault are all explored.

Four Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a dad travels to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to disclose about his family's background.

Suffering is piled on suffering as wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other repeatedly for all time

Related Narratives

Links proliferate. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee 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. Supporting characters from one narrative return in houses, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These storylines may sound complicated, but the author knows how to drive a narrative – his earlier popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His businesslike prose sparkles with gripping hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Power

Characters are drawn in succinct, impactful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or perceptive humour: a boy is struck by his father after having an accident at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap insults over cups of diluted tea.

The author's knack of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an previous story a authentic frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: trauma is accumulated upon suffering, accident on accident in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem destined to meet each other repeatedly for forever.

Thematic Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and closer to uncertainty, that is part of the author's message. These wounded people are weighed down by the crimes they have suffered, caught in patterns of thought and behavior that churn and spiral and may in turn damage others. The author has spoken about the influence of his own experiences of harm and he depicts with compassion the way his characters navigate this perilous landscape, extending for solutions – isolation, frigid water immersion, forgiveness or refreshing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" framing isn't particularly instructive, while the quick pace means the exploration of social issues or digital platforms is mostly superficial. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly engaging, victim-focused epic: a valued riposte to the usual obsession on detectives and criminals. The author demonstrates how trauma can affect lives and generations, and how time and compassion can silence its echoes.