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Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the days that ensue, they will rape her, then inter her while living, combination of unease and annoyance passing across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her temporary coffin.

This may have functioned as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's just one of numerous terrible events in The Elements, which assembles four novelettes – issued individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to find peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other contenders pulled out in objection at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of significant issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and abuse are all examined.

Four Narratives of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a isolated Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles vengeance with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a parent journeys to a funeral with his young son, and wonders how much to disclose about his family's background.

Pain is piled on suffering as hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other again and again for all time

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Relationships abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's group 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 resurface in homes, bars or judicial venues in another.

These storylines may sound tangled, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His direct prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to play with fire"; "the primary step I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Personality Portrayal and Narrative Power

Characters are portrayed in succinct, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself 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 wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an previous story a real excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is dulling, and at times almost comic: suffering is piled on pain, accident on coincidence in a bleak farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to meet each other repeatedly for eternity.

Conceptual Complexity and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and resembling uncertainty, that is part of the author's message. These damaged people are weighed down by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has spoken about the impact of his individual experiences of abuse and he portrays with compassion the way his ensemble navigate this dangerous landscape, reaching out for solutions – solitude, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "basic" framing isn't terribly educational, while the quick pace means the discussion of sexual politics or digital platforms is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, victim-focused saga: a welcome response to the common preoccupation on investigators and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how time and care can soften its aftereffects.