THE ELEMENTS is another truly excellent book from John Boyne. Although I normally would not be interested in a book of short stories, this was more than that. Each story is connected to the last by common characters. And they all have a common theme.

The first story is told by a woman who has enabled a sexual crime, although she didn't realize it at the time. She has come to an unnamed island off Ireland to escape all the people who are aware of this famous crime and to heal.

The second story is told by a former inhabitant of that island a few years later. He left the island for London, where he can be himself, a gay painter rather than a soccer star. But things don't turn out as planned. He becomes an accomplice to his friend's sexual crime and stands trial for it twice.

The third story is told by a member of the jury in the first of those trials. She is a doctor. She is also the perpetrator of sexual crimes.

The final story is told by a child psychologist who had interned with that doctor. He had also been one of her victims when he was 14. Now it's 15 years since his internship, and he has a son that age.

THE ELEMENTS is a book you won't want to put down. I admit, though, I found the third story the most unputdownable. How damaged that doctor was and how much damage she caused her victims!

I won an ARC of THE ELEMENTS through goodreads.com.

The Elements, John Boyne, author’ Anna Friel, Colin Morgan, Dane Whyte O’Hara, Niamh Cusack, narrators
At first, one might think this is just a book about sexual deviants and dismiss it, but it is much more. It is about the results of their heinous behavior on the innocents they abuse. It is about their ability to survive in the future. It is about redemption, but not for the deviants, they don’t seem to repent in this book. So, it is a book that takes us through the lives of their young victims and how they are forced to deal with consequences they never anticipated.
Their lives are so impacted by the cruelty and manipulation of the criminals, who rarely understood that their behavior was evil, that some choose to isolate themselves from society, some can never have normal relationships with the opposite sex, some cannot feel or show love, and some choose not to live at all. The book explores the circumstances that created the deviant behavior, and usually, the past events in their lives were so harmful to them that they felt forced to create the trauma for others, in the present. Both victim and victimizer will then carry those memories with them into their futures. They must both deal with their shame, their resentment and their pain. The stories are labeled for the elements as the element in each story shapes it. They are in order, Water, Earth, Fire and Air.
Each of the stories are separate, but later on they intersect. The ramifications of the traumatic events in their lives impacts each of them differently, but each of them tragically in some way. No one escapes the effects of the crimes against them. The young were so naïve, so trusting and in search of love and acceptance, that they were unaware of the danger of the person or persons taking advantage of their naivete, their timidity and their needs. In some instances, the children of the deviants were as dangerous, but in all cases, they were damaged by those who raised them or destroyed them.
In the first story, Brendan Carvin, a highly respected man is discovered to be sexually abusing the girls on the swim team. He has a wife and two daughters who were unaware of his behavior. Who believes that? They are ostracized, shamed and harassed by the public. One daughter, Emma, whom he had actually sexually abused in secret, walks into the water and never comes out. She cannot face her future. The other daughter, Rebecca, is never able to have normal relationships and harbors an anger that seethes under her skin for both her father and her mother, Vanessa. Vanessa changes her name to Willow Hale and leaving Rebecca behind, moves to a remote island in Ireland to recover from the guilt and shame that follows her. On the island, however, she seduces a lonely man in his twenties. She is in her fifties. She does not rape Luke, however, as others had been raped by their seducers. When Vanessa finally leaves the island and returns to her life, she is on the same ferry with Evan, a footballer who wants to be a painter, but whose bullying father refuses to accept his gentleness and shames him constantly. Evan needed to escape as much as Vanessa.
In the second story, Evan actually does become a footballer, of necessity, but only after he actually sells his body to survive. Rafe, the man who arranges his sorties is an influential politician in his other life. He also has a son at university. Evan is gay. He falls in love with Rafe’s son Robbie and somehow talks his way into Robbie’s school where they are both footballers. However, Robbie is not gay, instead, he is a rapist who engages in all kinds of sex. He likes to be watched. He likes to be filmed. When one girl presses charges against them both, the jury finds them innocent, though they are guilty of the crime. Evan had actually been the photographer. In the future, there will be consequences. On the same island, a young child of 12, Freya Patrus, is abused by 14-year-old twins, Arthur and Pascoe Kitto. They coerced her into a cave where they repeatedly raped her, continuing to force her with threats. Then when she refused, they buried her alive. Although she survived, that summer shaped Freya into a monster. They were the literal version of evil twins.
In the third story, Freya is now a surgeon working in the burn unit of a hospital. She chose this profession because these are people that society ignores and cannot look at. Society shames them for their catastrophic injuries. She has also been injured. Her injury is invisible to others. She has an intern named Aaron who has taken the position to get to know her better. Freya, in order to pay back men for the behavior she endured, now seduces innocent young boys, ruining their lives. They can also be raped, just as women can be. Freya’s mother’s influence on her was also negative. Beth, was promiscuous and had basically abandoned Freya, except for the summers she spent on the island where she was traumatized. For the rest of the year, she lived with her grandmother, Beth’s mother Hannah. Although she does not realize it, Aaron was one of the boy’s she had seduced. She had ruined his ability to relate to women. He took the job wit her to try and understand her motivation before he reported her to the authorities. He has a current girlfriend, Rebecca, Brendan Carvin’s daughter.
In the fourth story, Aaron is now a child psychologist and Rebecca is now a pilot. They are married and have a son, Emmet. Their marriage fails. They are both very damaged from their experiences. Rebecca goes on to marry a black aspiring author. Aaron had become infatuated with her first, but Furia Flyte is infatuated with Rebecca. I suppose this is where the author inserted his political beliefs. When Rebecca’s mom dies, she wants to be buried on the island that saved her. Aaron takes Emmet to the other side of the world for her funeral, though they have not been invited. Will they be welcomed or rejected? Once there, he meets Evan’s mother tending Evan’s gravesite. The stories have come full circle. What will the future hold for Aaron and Emmet now? Will there be redemption, forgiveness and a positive future for them? Experiences have shaped these people. Willful blindness has often caused tragedies. Will there be any kind of justice for all, in the end?
In the four stories, the elements are as follows, Vanessa is water, Evan is earth, Freya is fire and Aaron is air. These elements have shaped them. I wondered if Vanessa would learn to swim through life again, if Evan redeemed himself in the earth around him, if Freya would eventually burn in Hell and if Aaron would ever learn to breathe freely again?