The Elements Review: Interwoven Narratives of Pain

Young Freya stays with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that follow, they will rape her, then inter her while living, combination of unease and irritation passing across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her improvised coffin.

This could have served as the jarring main event of a novel, but it's just one of numerous terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novellas – published individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to discover peace in the contemporary moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders pulled out in dissent at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and assault are all investigated.

Distinct Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on court case as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages revenge with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a dad flies to a burial with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's past.

Pain is accumulated upon pain as damaged survivors seem doomed to bump into each other repeatedly for forever

Linked Narratives

Links multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's jury 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. Secondary characters from one narrative reappear in houses, bars or judicial venues in another.

These storylines may sound complicated, but the author is skilled at how to drive a narrative – his prior successful Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been rendered into numerous languages. His straightforward prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Personality Development and Narrative Power

Characters are portrayed in brief, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's knack of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a authentic excitement, for the initial several times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is dulling, and at times practically comic: pain is accumulated upon trauma, coincidence on accident in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem destined to meet each other continuously for eternity.

Conceptual Depth and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and resembling limbo, that is aspect of the author's point. 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 influence of his own experiences of harm and he portrays with compassion the way his cast navigate this perilous landscape, striving for remedies – solitude, cold ocean swims, resolution or bracing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "elemental" framing isn't particularly informative, while the brisk pace means the discussion of gender dynamics or social media is mainly shallow. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely engaging, victim-focused epic: a appreciated response to the common preoccupation on investigators and perpetrators. The author demonstrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how time and compassion can soften its echoes.