A New Collection Analysis: Interwoven Tales of Pain
Young Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that come after, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, combination of anxiety and frustration passing across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her makeshift coffin.
This might have stood as the jarring focal point of a novel, but it's just one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which gathers four novellas – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate previous suffering and try to achieve peace in the present moment.
Debated Context and Subject Exploration
The book's release has been marred by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other nominees pulled out in protest at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been called off.
Debate of trans rights is not present from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of big issues. Homophobia, the impact of conventional and digital platforms, caregiver abandonment and abuse are all examined.
Distinct Accounts of Trauma
- In Water, a mourning woman named Willow moves to a remote Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for terrible crimes.
- In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an participant to rape.
- In Fire, the adult Freya balances vengeance with her work as a medical professional.
- In Air, a father journeys to a funeral with his teenage son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's past.
Pain is layered with suffering as hurt survivors seem doomed to meet each other continuously for forever
Related Accounts
Relationships multiply. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one story resurface in houses, pubs or legal settings in another.
These plot threads may sound complicated, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his previous acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been rendered into numerous languages. His direct prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to play with fire"; "the initial action I do when I arrive on the island is change my name".
Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Strength
Characters are drawn in brief, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes echo with melancholy power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after having an accident at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of watery tea.
The author's talent of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine frisson, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times nearly comic: trauma is piled on suffering, chance on accident in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem fated to encounter each other again and again for eternity.
Thematic Complexity and Concluding Assessment
If this sounds different from life and closer to limbo, that is element of the author's thesis. These hurt people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that churn and descend and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the impact of his own experiences of harm and he describes with compassion the way his cast navigate this perilous landscape, striving for solutions – seclusion, cold ocean swims, resolution or refreshing honesty – that might bring illumination.
The book's "basic" structure isn't extremely informative, while the rapid pace means the examination of gender dynamics or online networks is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly engaging, survivor-centered saga: a valued riposte to the typical obsession on detectives and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can run through lives and generations, and how time and compassion can soften its reverberations.
