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Young Freya is visiting her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that follow, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, a mix of unease and irritation passing across their faces as they ultimately free her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the jarring centrepiece of a novel, but it's just one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront previous suffering and try to discover peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been marred by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other candidates withdrew in objection at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Conversation of trans rights is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, parental neglect and abuse are all investigated.

Four Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow moves to a isolated Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on legal proceedings as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya balances vengeance with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a parent travels to a memorial service with his teenage son, and considers how much to disclose about his family's background.

Suffering is layered with suffering as damaged survivors seem doomed to meet each other continuously for forever

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Relationships abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who returns 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 homes, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his earlier popular Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His businesslike prose bristles with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to play with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is modify my name".

Character Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in succinct, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is hit 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 diluted tea.

The author's knack of bringing you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine frisson, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times practically comic: trauma is accumulated upon pain, coincidence on coincidence in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to meet each other continuously for all time.

Conceptual Complexity and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and more like limbo, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These damaged people are weighed down by the crimes they have endured, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that stir and spiral and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the effect of his individual experiences of harm and he portrays with understanding the way his characters navigate this dangerous landscape, extending for remedies – isolation, icy sea dips, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "elemental" concept isn't extremely informative, while the rapid pace means the examination of social issues or digital platforms is mostly shallow. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, victim-focused epic: a valued rebuttal to the common obsession on investigators and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how years and compassion can silence its aftereffects.