🔗 Share this article A New Collection Review: Interconnected Stories of Suffering Twelve-year-old Freya is visiting 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 violate her, then entomb her breathing, a mix of anxiety and frustration darting across their faces as they eventually release her from her improvised coffin. This could have served as the jarring focal point of a novel, but it's just one of many awful events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – published separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront historical pain and try to discover peace in the current moment. Debated Context and Thematic Exploration The book's release has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees withdrew in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled. Conversation of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of major issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and assault are all investigated. Four Stories of Pain In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a isolated Irish island after her husband is jailed for terrible crimes. In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an participant to rape. In Fire, the grown-up Freya balances vengeance with her work as a doctor. In Air, a dad travels to a funeral with his adolescent son, and considers how much to reveal about his family's background. Pain is piled on pain as hurt survivors seem fated to meet each other repeatedly for forever Interconnected Narratives Connections abound. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's panel 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 return in houses, taverns or courtrooms in another. These storylines may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been rendered into numerous languages. His direct prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to play with fire"; "the first thing I do when I arrive on the island is alter my name". Personality Development and Storytelling Power Characters are portrayed in succinct, impactful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes echo with tragic power or perceptive humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of weak tea. The author's ability of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is dulling, and at times practically comic: pain is layered with trauma, accident on chance in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem fated to encounter each other again and again for eternity. Conceptual Depth and Concluding Evaluation If this sounds not exactly life and more like purgatory, that is element of the author's point. These hurt people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, stuck in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the influence of his own experiences of abuse and he depicts with understanding the way his cast traverse this perilous landscape, extending for treatments – seclusion, icy sea dips, forgiveness or invigorating honesty – that might let light in. The book's "elemental" concept isn't terribly informative, while the rapid pace means the examination of social issues or social media is mostly shallow. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a completely engaging, survivor-centered chronicle: a welcome response to the common obsession on investigators and criminals. The author illustrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can soften its aftereffects.