🔗 Share this article The Elements Exploration: Interconnected Narratives of Trauma Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they violate her, then inter her while living, a mix of nervousness and frustration darting across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her makeshift coffin. This could have served as the disturbing focal point of a novel, but it's only one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which gathers four short novels – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate previous suffering and try to discover peace in the current moment. Controversial Context and Subject Exploration The book's publication has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other contenders pulled out 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 explores plenty of big issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the effect of conventional and digital platforms, parental neglect and abuse are all investigated. Four Narratives of Pain In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for terrible crimes. In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an participant to rape. In Fire, the mature Freya juggles revenge with her work as a medical professional. In Air, a father flies to a funeral with his teenage son, and considers how much to divulge about his family's background. Pain is accumulated upon trauma as wounded survivors seem fated to meet each other repeatedly for eternity Linked Accounts Connections multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's panel 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. Minor characters from one story return in homes, taverns or courtrooms in another. These storylines may sound complicated, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His businesslike prose bristles with gripping hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is modify my name". Character Portrayal and Narrative Strength Characters are sketched in succinct, impactful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or insightful humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of weak tea. The author's knack of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times nearly comic: trauma is accumulated upon pain, coincidence on coincidence in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to bump into each other repeatedly for all time. Thematic Depth and Concluding Evaluation If this sounds less like life and closer to purgatory, that is part of the author's message. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have suffered, stuck in routines of thought and behavior that stir and spiral and may in turn damage others. The author has discussed about the impact of his individual experiences of harm and he portrays with compassion the way his ensemble traverse this risky landscape, extending for remedies – isolation, icy sea dips, forgiveness or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity. The book's "elemental" structure isn't terribly informative, while the rapid pace means the discussion of social issues or social media is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a entirely engaging, trauma-oriented epic: a appreciated riposte to the usual preoccupation on authorities and perpetrators. The author demonstrates how trauma can run through lives and generations, and how years and compassion can soften its reverberations.