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Young Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the days that come after, they violate her, then bury her alive, combination of unease and annoyance passing across their faces as they finally release her from her improvised coffin.

This might have stood as the jarring focal point of a novel, but it's merely a single of many terrible events in The Elements, which collects four short novels – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront past trauma and try to discover peace in the present moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other candidates dropped out in dissent at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and abuse are all explored.

Four Stories of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya balances vengeance with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father travels to a burial with his teenage son, and considers how much to divulge about his family's history.

Trauma is piled on trauma as wounded survivors seem destined to encounter each other continuously for eternity

Interconnected Accounts

Connections multiply. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's group 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 story return in homes, pubs or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound complex, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his prior acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been translated into many languages. His direct prose bristles with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are sketched in concise, impactful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes ring with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is struck by his father after urinating at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of weak tea.

The author's talent of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a real thrill, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times almost comic: pain is layered with pain, accident on accident in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other again and again for all time.

Conceptual Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds different from life and resembling limbo, that is element of the author's message. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have experienced, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has discussed about the impact of his individual experiences of harm and he depicts with compassion the way his characters traverse this perilous landscape, striving for treatments – seclusion, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't particularly educational, while the brisk pace means the examination of social issues or social media is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly engaging, survivor-centered chronicle: a appreciated riposte to the common obsession on authorities and offenders. The author illustrates how suffering can run through lives and generations, and how years and care can quieten its echoes.