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Young Freya is visiting her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she encounters teenage twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that follow, they will rape her, then inter her while living, blend of unease and frustration flitting across their faces as they finally free her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's just one of many awful events in The Elements, which assembles four novelettes – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront past trauma and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Controversial Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other contenders dropped out in protest at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is missing from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of traditional and social media, family disregard and sexual violence are all examined.

Multiple Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow moves to a isolated Irish island after her husband is jailed for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a dad flies to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to disclose about his family's past.

Trauma is piled on pain as wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other again and again for all time

Linked Narratives

Connections multiply. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to escape 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 account resurface in cottages, bars or legal settings in another.

These narrative elements may sound complicated, but the author understands how to propel a narrative – his previous acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His straightforward prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Power

Characters are sketched in concise, effective lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of weak tea.

The author's ability of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine frisson, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: trauma is piled on trauma, coincidence on coincidence in a dark farce in which damaged survivors seem doomed to bump into each other again and again for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds different from life and closer to purgatory, that is element of the author's message. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, stuck in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has discussed about the impact of his personal experiences of abuse and he depicts with compassion the way his ensemble traverse this dangerous landscape, striving for treatments – seclusion, cold ocean swims, forgiveness or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" framing isn't terribly informative, while the quick pace means the examination of social issues or online networks is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a entirely readable, trauma-oriented chronicle: a appreciated rebuttal to the usual preoccupation on authorities and criminals. The author demonstrates how pain can affect lives and generations, and how years and care can quieten its reverberations.