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Young Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she encounters teenage twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the days that follow, they violate her, then inter her while living, blend of nervousness and annoyance flitting across their faces as they ultimately free her from her temporary coffin.

This might have stood as the disturbing main event of a novel, but it's just one of many awful events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – released distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate previous suffering and try to find peace in the contemporary moment.

Controversial Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the preliminary list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other candidates pulled out in dissent at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Conversation of gender identity issues is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and sexual violence are all explored.

Four Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a dad journeys to a funeral with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to divulge about his family's history.

Suffering is piled on trauma as hurt survivors seem fated to bump into each other again and again for forever

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Connections abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative reappear in homes, taverns or judicial venues in another.

These storylines may sound tangled, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into many languages. His straightforward prose bristles with gripping hooks: "in the end, 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 modify my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are drawn in brief, impactful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with sad power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after having an accident at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap insults over cups of weak tea.

The author's ability of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic excitement, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is dulling, and at times almost comic: trauma is piled on trauma, chance on accident in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem doomed to meet each other repeatedly for all time.

Conceptual Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and closer to purgatory, that is aspect of the author's point. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have experienced, stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and spiral and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the effect of his individual experiences of abuse and he portrays with compassion the way his cast negotiate this dangerous landscape, extending for treatments – seclusion, icy sea dips, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "fundamental" framing isn't particularly instructive, while the rapid pace means the examination of sexual politics or social media is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely engaging, survivor-centered epic: a welcome riposte to the common fixation on detectives and criminals. The author demonstrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how duration and compassion can soften its reverberations.