The Elements Review: Interwoven Stories of Pain

Young Freya spends time with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "is having one of your own." In the time that follow, they violate her, then bury her alive, combination of anxiety and irritation passing across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her improvised coffin.

This could have served as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which assembles four novellas – issued individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to find peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the preliminary list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other contenders dropped out in objection at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Debate of trans rights is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and sexual violence are all examined.

Four Accounts of Suffering

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a dad travels to a burial with his teenage son, and wonders how much to disclose about his family's past.

Suffering is accumulated upon suffering as hurt survivors seem destined to meet each other again and again for eternity

Interconnected Accounts

Relationships proliferate. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative resurface in houses, bars or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his previous acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His businesslike prose bristles with gripping hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to play with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is modify my name".

Character Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are drawn in concise, effective lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes echo with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is struck by his father after having an accident at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's ability of carrying you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a real excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is dulling, and at times nearly comic: pain is accumulated upon trauma, chance on coincidence in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other again and again for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and more like uncertainty, that is element of the author's point. These wounded people are weighed down by the crimes they have experienced, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and plunge and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the influence of his own experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with understanding the way his characters traverse this risky landscape, reaching out for solutions – solitude, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't terribly instructive, while the brisk pace means the discussion of sexual politics or online networks is primarily shallow. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a thoroughly readable, trauma-oriented saga: a valued riposte to the typical fixation on detectives and offenders. The author demonstrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can silence its reverberations.