Book Summary and Reviews of The Elements by John Boyne

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Fallout from crimes of abuse impacts the families of perpetrators and victims in four lucid, interconnected stories
Victims of sexual abuse carry the scars for the remainder of their lives, while the disturbing emotional shrapnel emanating from those explosive events impact the perpetrators' unwitting family members; their spouses, their children, their partners, sometimes even into their extended family, upending their lives in perpetuity, both for them and often into the next generation. Such is the dark and dour premise of John Boyne's latest novel, ‘The Elements.’

What may a reader derive from the novel’s four hundred-plus pages on such a doom-laden and emotive premise? Anger and outrage? Indeed, distaste and disgust? Certainly, and many other related reactions. How could there possibly be any pleasure, serenity, or even humor in the telling of such a story without trivializing the underlying premise? Sufficient to say that John Boyne’s flowing, optimally paced narrative delivers the reader such a comprehensive range of emotions. Structured as four novellas, each titled as an element (water, earth, fire, air) and laced with the interconnecting stories of the lives of victims and their families over the span of a generation, John Boyne's profound storytelling serves the reader with drama, introspection, and even, sometimes, humor. In Summary, a compelling, sensitive, and powerful novel.

techeditor

Another excellent book from John Boyne
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.

labmom55

Powerful and thought provoking
Once again, John Boyne has crafted a book that drew me in and kept me enthralled. It is a powerful book. In The Elements, four interconnected stories explore sexual crimes and the different parties involved - the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator and the victim. The main character of the first story is a wife who remained obtuse to her husband’s crime and has now run away in the aftermath of him being found guilty. Next, there's the footballer who is on trial for supposedly filming his buddy’s rape of a young woman. Then a female doctor who rapes young boys because of a crime she was the victim of. And finally, a forty year old man who was once the victim of the doctor. The stories are all tangentially intertwined until the end, when everything comes full circle. The book presents a pebble in a pond aspect, watching the repercussions move outward.

Boyne manages to present each character in a straightforward manner. It takes a special talent to write from the first person POV in some of these situations. I didn’t feel sympathetic to the first three, but I also didn’t look away. Each was nuanced and I felt I was given a clear eyed view of their thoughts. Overall, it’s a book that covers different aspects of culpability, guilt, identity, forgiveness (or not) and survival. As always, the writing is beautiful. This is a deeply thought provoking book. It’s a book I’ll be pondering for a while.

My thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt for an advance copy of this book.

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