🔗 Share this article John Boyne's Latest Review: Interwoven Narratives of Trauma Young Freya is visiting her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that ensue, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, blend of anxiety and irritation darting across their faces as they ultimately free her from her improvised coffin. This might have stood as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's only one of many horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – published separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate past trauma and try to discover peace in the current moment. Disputed Context and Subject Exploration The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders dropped out in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off. Debate of trans rights is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of significant issues. Homophobia, the influence of conventional and digital platforms, caregiver abandonment and sexual violence are all explored. Multiple Narratives of Pain In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for horrific crimes. In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an participant to rape. In Fire, the adult Freya balances vengeance with her work as a medical professional. In Air, a father travels to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to reveal about his family's history. Suffering is layered with suffering as hurt survivors seem doomed to meet each other continuously for forever Linked Accounts Relationships proliferate. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to escape 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 story reappear in homes, taverns or judicial venues in another. These storylines may sound tangled, but the author knows how to drive a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been rendered into numerous languages. His businesslike prose bristles with thriller-ish 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 alter my name". Personality Portrayal and Storytelling Power Characters are sketched in succinct, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled 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 urinating at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap jabs over cups of weak tea. The author's talent of carrying you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the reappearance of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a real frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is dulling, and at times practically comic: pain is accumulated upon pain, chance on coincidence in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem destined to bump into each other again and again for all time. Thematic Complexity and Concluding Evaluation If this sounds less like life and more like purgatory, that is aspect of the author's point. These hurt people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the effect of his personal experiences of harm and he depicts with compassion the way his characters negotiate this risky landscape, reaching out for remedies – isolation, frigid water immersion, forgiveness or invigorating honesty – that might bring illumination. The book's "fundamental" structure isn't extremely informative, while the quick pace means the examination of sexual politics or digital platforms is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, survivor-centered saga: a appreciated rebuttal to the typical preoccupation on detectives and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can soften its aftereffects.