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Twelve-year-old Freya is visiting her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she encounters teenage twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that come after, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, combination of nervousness and frustration passing across their faces as they eventually release her from her improvised coffin.

This may have functioned as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's just one of multiple terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate past trauma and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Debated Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been marred by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other nominees pulled out in dissent at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Discussion of gender identity issues is missing from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, family disregard and assault are all investigated.

Four Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow moves to a remote Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles revenge with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a dad travels to a funeral with his young son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's history.

Trauma is accumulated upon pain as hurt survivors seem fated to meet each other again and again for eternity

Linked Accounts

Links proliferate. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one account return in houses, taverns or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to power a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His businesslike prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to play with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is modify my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are portrayed in succinct, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap insults 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 earlier story a authentic excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: suffering is piled on trauma, chance on chance in a grim farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to encounter each other continuously for all time.

Thematic Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and closer to uncertainty, that is element of the author's thesis. These hurt people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, stuck in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and plunge and may in turn damage others. The author has spoken about the influence of his personal experiences of harm and he portrays with understanding the way his characters navigate this perilous landscape, reaching out for remedies – seclusion, icy sea dips, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't particularly educational, while the quick pace means the examination of sexual politics or social media is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a entirely engaging, trauma-oriented saga: a welcome rebuttal to the common obsession on investigators and perpetrators. The author demonstrates how trauma can affect lives and generations, and how time and compassion can silence its echoes.