🔗 Share this article A New Collection Analysis: Linked Narratives of Pain Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that come after, they sexually assault her, then inter her while living, combination of anxiety and irritation passing across their faces as they finally release her from her improvised coffin. This may have functioned as the jarring main event of a novel, but it's only one of multiple awful events in The Elements, which gathers four short novels – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate previous suffering and try to achieve peace in the current moment. Debated Context and Thematic Exploration The book's publication has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the second novella, on the preliminary list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other candidates dropped out in dissent at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off. Discussion of trans rights is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of big issues. Homophobia, the effect of traditional and social media, family disregard and assault are all investigated. Distinct Stories of Suffering In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow moves to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for horrific crimes. In Earth, Evan is a athlete on trial as an accessory to rape. In Fire, the adult Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a medical professional. In Air, a dad travels to a funeral with his teenage son, and wonders how much to disclose about his family's past. Pain is piled on pain as damaged survivors seem fated to meet each other again and again for eternity Linked Narratives Links proliferate. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one story reappear in homes, pubs or legal settings in another. These storylines may sound complex, but the author understands how to propel a narrative – his previous acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been converted into dozens languages. His businesslike prose bristles with gripping hooks: "after all, 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 modify my name". Character Development and Narrative Power Characters are drawn in succinct, impactful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes ring with tragic power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after having an accident at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of weak tea. The author's talent of bringing you completely into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an previous story a real excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times nearly comic: pain is accumulated upon suffering, coincidence on coincidence in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to bump into each other continuously for forever. Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment If this sounds different from life and resembling purgatory, that is part of the author's message. These wounded people are oppressed by the crimes they have experienced, caught in cycles of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the effect of his own experiences of abuse and he depicts with sympathy the way his characters navigate this perilous landscape, striving for treatments – isolation, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might let light in. The book's "elemental" structure isn't terribly informative, while the brisk pace means the exploration of gender dynamics or online networks is mostly shallow. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely readable, trauma-oriented chronicle: a welcome riposte to the common fixation on investigators and perpetrators. The author demonstrates how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can quieten its aftereffects.