Three years ago, I began an unusual project.
I decided to write four novellas, each 40,000 words long, based around the traditional building blocks of the universe – water, earth, fire, and air – otherwise known as The Elements. The idea was to explore sexual abuse from different perspectives: a woman who questions whether she has enabled an abuser, a young man complicit in a rape, a perpetrator of sexual violence, and finally a victim. Each book is a stand-alone story, and they can be read in any order, although to provide a point of connection, a minor character from each becomes the narrator of the next.
It was quite a challenge and, as the series progressed, the subject became increasingly harrowing, but while it’s difficult to write about such a dark theme without having an emotional response to it, I also found it strangely cathartic. I’d written about abuse in an earlier novel, A History of Loneliness (2014), but these books look at it in a fresh way, making me think more deeply about my own experiences.
I’ve spoken before on radio and in newspaper interviews about the abuse I suffered in school, so it was liberating to use that pain in a constructive way. The novellas have given me more insight into the minds of those who hurt children for their own gratification, and I hope that readers have found them thought-provoking.
Having reached the end of this literary journey, I feel proud of what I’ve achieved, and equally delighted by the beautiful hardback editions produced by my publisher, Doubleday. Many thanks to all the readers who embraced the first three volumes and, with the publication of AIR, I hope you find that I’ve brought the sequence to an authentic and satisfying resolution.
