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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with 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 ensue, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, blend of nervousness and frustration flitting across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her improvised coffin.

This could have served as the jarring centrepiece of a novel, but it's just one of many awful events in The Elements, which gathers four novellas – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate previous suffering and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other nominees dropped out in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, family disregard and assault are all explored.

Four Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya manages revenge with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a father journeys to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to disclose about his family's history.

Trauma is accumulated upon trauma as wounded survivors seem destined to bump into each other repeatedly for all time

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Links multiply. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative reappear in homes, bars or judicial venues in another.

These storylines may sound complicated, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his prior acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His straightforward prose sparkles 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".

Character Development and Narrative Power

Characters are drawn in succinct, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is hit by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade insults over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a genuine excitement, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times practically comic: trauma is piled on pain, accident on chance in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to encounter each other again and again for all time.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds less like life and more like uncertainty, that is aspect of the author's point. These wounded people are weighed down by the crimes they have endured, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that agitate and spiral and may in turn damage others. The author has spoken about the effect of his own experiences of harm and he describes with understanding the way his cast navigate this dangerous landscape, extending for remedies – solitude, frigid water immersion, forgiveness or invigorating honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "fundamental" framing isn't terribly informative, while the rapid pace means the examination of sexual politics or social media is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a completely readable, trauma-oriented saga: a valued response to the usual obsession on detectives and offenders. The author demonstrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how time and compassion can quieten its reverberations.