🔗 Share this article John Boyne's Latest Exploration: Linked Narratives of Pain Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they inform her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that ensue, they sexually assault her, then entomb her breathing, a mix of anxiety and frustration darting across their faces as they finally free her from her makeshift coffin. This may have functioned as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of many terrible events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate past trauma and try to find peace in the contemporary moment. Controversial Context and Subject Exploration The book's publication has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other nominees withdrew in objection at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled. Conversation of trans rights is not present from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of significant issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and abuse are all investigated. Distinct Narratives of Trauma In Water, a mourning woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for awful crimes. In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an participant to rape. In Fire, the grown-up Freya manages vengeance with her work as a medical professional. In Air, a parent flies to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's past. Pain is accumulated upon pain as hurt survivors seem destined to encounter each other again and again for eternity Related Narratives Connections abound. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one account resurface in homes, bars or courtrooms in another. These narrative elements may sound complex, but the author knows how to propel a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His direct prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is modify my name". Character Development and Narrative Power Characters are sketched in concise, powerful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes echo with tragic power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade insults over cups of diluted tea. The author's knack of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an prior story a real excitement, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: pain is piled on pain, accident on coincidence in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to meet each other continuously for forever. Thematic Depth and Concluding Evaluation If this sounds different from life and resembling uncertainty, that is element of the author's message. These damaged people are weighed down by the crimes they have endured, caught in patterns of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the impact of his own experiences of harm and he portrays with understanding the way his cast traverse this risky landscape, reaching out for treatments – isolation, cold ocean swims, forgiveness or refreshing honesty – that might provide clarity. The book's "basic" framing isn't terribly instructive, while the quick pace means the exploration of sexual politics or digital platforms is primarily shallow. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a entirely readable, trauma-oriented saga: a appreciated rebuttal to the common preoccupation on investigators and offenders. The author shows how trauma can permeate lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can quieten its aftereffects.