book cover of The Elements
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The Elements

(2025)
(A book in the Water, Earth, Fire, Air series)
A novel by

 
 
''An epic.... Impactful and provocative’ The New York Times
‘An almost note-perfect piece of first-person storytelling’Guardian
‘Subtle, intelligent and humane’Sunday Telegraph
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John Boyne's acclaimed quartet of Water, Earth, Fire and Air come together at last.

Human life is governed by the elements – water, earth, fire and air. They are fundamental to our existence. They sustain us, but they also challenge us.


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 extraordinary empathy and unflinching honesty, at every step challenging us to confront our own perceptions of who we are and what made us that way.


Genre: Literary Fiction

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