The Elements Analysis: Interconnected Narratives of Trauma

Twelve-year-old Freya is visiting her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that follow, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, a mix of anxiety and annoyance passing across their faces as they ultimately free her from her improvised coffin.

This might have stood as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's merely a single of many terrible events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – published individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a notable 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 gender identity issues is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of big issues. Homophobia, the effect of traditional and social media, family disregard and assault are all examined.

Distinct Accounts of Pain

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on legal proceedings as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a father journeys to a memorial service with his teenage son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's history.

Trauma is piled on suffering as wounded survivors seem doomed to bump into each other again and again for forever

Interconnected Stories

Connections multiply. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one account resurface in homes, taverns or legal settings in another.

These storylines may sound complicated, but the author knows how to propel a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His direct prose bristles with suspenseful 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 change my name".

Personality Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are drawn in brief, effective lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes ring with sad power or insightful 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 exchange insults over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a authentic thrill, for the opening times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times practically comic: trauma is layered with pain, coincidence on accident in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem fated to encounter each other again and again for all time.

Conceptual Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds not exactly life and resembling purgatory, that is part of the author's thesis. These damaged people are weighed down by the crimes they have suffered, caught in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the influence of his individual experiences of harm and he depicts with sympathy the way his cast negotiate this risky landscape, striving for treatments – isolation, frigid water immersion, resolution or invigorating honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't extremely instructive, while the rapid pace means the examination of sexual politics or social media is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a thoroughly readable, victim-focused saga: a welcome rebuttal to the typical obsession on detectives and perpetrators. The author shows how pain can run through lives and generations, and how years and compassion can quieten its reverberations.