John Boyne's Latest Analysis: Interwoven Stories of Trauma

Twelve-year-old Freya stays with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she comes across 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 ensue, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, blend of anxiety and irritation passing across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her improvised coffin.

This might have stood as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – published separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront past trauma and try to discover peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been marred by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other candidates withdrew in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of gender identity issues is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of significant issues. Homophobia, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, parental neglect and abuse are all examined.

Distinct Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow moves to a isolated Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya juggles vengeance with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a father flies to a funeral with his young son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's background.

Suffering is piled on suffering as damaged survivors seem destined to meet each other continuously for eternity

Linked Stories

Links multiply. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative resurface in cottages, bars or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound tangled, but the author knows how to propel a narrative – his previous successful Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His direct prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to play with fire"; "the primary step I do when I reach the island is change my name".

Character Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in brief, impactful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap insults over cups of watery tea.

The author's ability of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a authentic frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the collective effect of it all is numbing, and at times nearly comic: suffering is layered with trauma, accident on coincidence in a bleak farce in which damaged survivors seem fated to encounter each other continuously for forever.

Thematic Complexity and Concluding Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and closer to uncertainty, that is aspect of the author's message. These wounded people are weighed down by the crimes they have experienced, caught in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and plunge and may in turn damage others. The author has talked about the influence of his own experiences of mistreatment and he portrays with sympathy the way his ensemble negotiate this perilous landscape, reaching out for remedies – isolation, frigid water immersion, resolution or bracing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "basic" structure isn't particularly informative, while the quick pace means the exploration of social issues or social media is primarily superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a thoroughly engaging, survivor-centered epic: a welcome rebuttal to the usual preoccupation on investigators and offenders. The author illustrates how pain can permeate lives and generations, and how years and care can soften its reverberations.