Young Freya stays with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she meets teenage twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they violate her, then inter her while living, a mix of unease and irritation passing across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her makeshift coffin.
This may have functioned as the shocking main event of a novel, but it's just one of many horrific events in The Elements, which collects four short novels – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to discover peace in the present moment.
The book's issuance has been marred by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other candidates withdrew in dissent at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been called off.
Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of big issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the impact of traditional and social media, family disregard and abuse are all examined.
Suffering is accumulated upon suffering as wounded survivors seem doomed to bump into each other repeatedly for eternity
Relationships proliferate. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative return in homes, pubs or courtrooms in another.
These storylines may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to power a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into dozens languages. His businesslike prose sparkles with thriller-ish hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to play with fire"; "the first thing I do when I reach the island is change my name".
Characters are sketched in brief, impactful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with sad power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap insults over cups of diluted tea.
The author's knack of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a authentic thrill, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: suffering is accumulated upon suffering, accident on accident in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to encounter each other repeatedly for all time.
If this sounds different from life and resembling limbo, that is part of the author's thesis. These damaged people are weighed down by the crimes they have experienced, trapped in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has discussed about the effect of his personal experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with sympathy the way his ensemble traverse this risky landscape, extending for treatments – seclusion, icy sea dips, forgiveness or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.
The book's "elemental" structure isn't extremely educational, while the rapid pace means the examination of gender dynamics or social media is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a entirely accessible, trauma-oriented saga: a welcome rebuttal to the typical fixation on authorities and perpetrators. The author shows how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how years and care can silence its aftereffects.
