🔗 Share this article The Elements Review: Linked Narratives of Trauma Young Freya stays with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that follow, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, blend of nervousness and frustration passing across their faces as they finally liberate her from her makeshift coffin. This may have functioned as the jarring main event of a novel, but it's only one of multiple terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novellas – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront past trauma and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment. Disputed Context and Subject Exploration The book's issuance has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other candidates pulled out in objection at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off. Discussion of gender identity issues is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, family disregard and assault are all investigated. Multiple Accounts of Suffering In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes. In Earth, Evan is a athlete on legal proceedings as an participant to rape. In Fire, the adult Freya balances vengeance with her work as a surgeon. In Air, a father journeys to a burial with his teenage son, and considers how much to disclose about his family's background. Trauma is accumulated upon trauma as damaged survivors seem doomed to meet each other repeatedly for eternity Linked Narratives Relationships proliferate. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative return in homes, pubs or courtrooms in another. These plot threads may sound complex, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His straightforward prose shines with gripping hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is modify my name". Character Portrayal and Narrative Power Characters are portrayed in succinct, powerful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap barbs over cups of weak tea. The author's knack of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a real thrill, for the initial several times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is numbing, and at times almost comic: suffering is layered with pain, accident on coincidence in a dark farce in which damaged survivors seem doomed to bump into each other again and again for all time. Conceptual Complexity and Concluding Assessment If this sounds less like life and closer to limbo, that is part of the author's message. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and spiral and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the effect of his personal experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with understanding the way his cast navigate this risky landscape, reaching out for solutions – isolation, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might let light in. The book's "basic" structure isn't terribly instructive, while the brisk pace means the examination of sexual politics or digital platforms is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a entirely readable, victim-focused epic: a appreciated riposte to the usual preoccupation on detectives and criminals. The author illustrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can quieten its aftereffects.