The Elements

In  The Elements,  John Boyne has created a vivid kaleidoscope to reflect that contradiction: a quartet of intertwined narratives, each providing a different perspective on cause and effect from the points of view of the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator and the victim.

 

From a mother on the run from her past, to a young football star on trial, a successful surgeon grappling with childhood trauma, and finally a father on a transformative journey with his son, the four strands weave together to form a tapestry of intersecting lives.

 

Boyne’s most ambitious work yet,  The Elements  is both an engrossing drama and a moving examination of the fault lines inherent to human experience. In crisp, spellbinding prose, he navigates a complex subject with extraordinar empathy and unflinching honesty, at every step challenging us to confront our own perceptions of who we are and what made us that way.