The Elements Exploration: Linked Stories of Trauma

Young Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they sexually assault her, then entomb her breathing, blend of nervousness and irritation passing across their faces as they finally release her from her temporary coffin.

This might have stood as the jarring centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of numerous awful events in The Elements, which gathers four short novels – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to achieve peace in the present moment.

Debated Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders dropped out in protest at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, family disregard and sexual violence are all investigated.

Distinct Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow transfers to a isolated Irish island after her husband is jailed for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya manages retaliation with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father travels to a burial with his teenage son, and wonders how much to reveal about his family's past.

Pain is piled on suffering as hurt survivors seem destined to meet each other repeatedly for forever

Interconnected Narratives

Links multiply. 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, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one story resurface in cottages, bars or judicial venues in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his prior acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His businesslike prose bristles with gripping hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Power

Characters are portrayed in succinct, impactful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or observational humour: a boy is hit by his father after urinating at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's knack of transporting you completely into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine thrill, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is dulling, and at times practically comic: suffering is accumulated upon pain, chance on accident in a dark farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to meet each other again and again for eternity.

Conceptual Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds less like life and closer to limbo, that is part of the author's message. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have experienced, caught in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the influence of his own experiences of harm and he portrays with compassion the way his characters negotiate this risky landscape, extending for remedies – seclusion, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "basic" concept isn't extremely instructive, while the quick pace means the discussion of social issues or online networks is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely readable, trauma-oriented chronicle: a welcome riposte to the typical obsession on detectives and offenders. The author demonstrates how trauma can affect lives and generations, and how time and tenderness can soften its reverberations.