A New Collection Review: Interwoven Tales of Suffering

Young Freya stays with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the days that come after, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, blend of nervousness and annoyance passing across their faces as they finally liberate her from her makeshift coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's merely a single of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront historical pain and try to achieve peace in the present moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's release has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders dropped out in objection at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Debate of trans rights is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of traditional and social media, parental neglect and assault are all explored.

Four Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a father flies to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and considers how much to reveal about his family's history.

Trauma is piled on suffering as damaged survivors seem doomed to encounter each other again and again for forever

Related Accounts

Connections proliferate. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to flee 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 return in houses, bars or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound complicated, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his prior successful Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into many languages. His businesslike prose shines with gripping hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to play with fire"; "the initial action I do when I arrive on the island is change my name".

Personality Development and Narrative Power

Characters are drawn in succinct, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is struck by his father after urinating at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap barbs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's ability of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an previous story a real thrill, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: pain is accumulated upon trauma, accident on coincidence in a grim farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to encounter each other again and again for eternity.

Conceptual Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and more like uncertainty, that is aspect of the author's message. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that churn and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has spoken about the influence of his own experiences of abuse and he depicts with compassion the way his ensemble traverse this risky landscape, reaching out for remedies – isolation, icy sea dips, forgiveness or invigorating honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "elemental" concept isn't terribly educational, while the quick pace means the examination of social issues or social media is mostly superficial. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a completely readable, survivor-centered saga: a welcome riposte to the common obsession on investigators and perpetrators. The author shows how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can quieten its echoes.