When the Marquess of Queensberry left his calling card at the Albemarle Club in February 1895, it bore only his name and five words: “For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite.” The most celebrated playwright of his day famously sued for libel, which led to his arrest, criminal prosecution and, ultimately, prison. From then on, his gilded existence spiraled into public disgrace, humiliation and an early death. But what if he had simply ignored the insult? What direction might his life have taken? Rather than dying in penury in Paris at age 46, what if Wilde had lived to bear witness to the momentous events and cataclysmic changes of the first part of the 20th century, and even influence some of them? What if the second half of his life was as dramatic, tumultuous and exhilarating as the first?

In THE ELEMENTS, acclaimed Irish novelist John Boyne has created an epic saga that weaves together four interconnected narratives, each representing a different perspective on crime: the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator and the victim. The narrative follows a mother on the run from her past, a young soccer star facing a trial, a successful surgeon grappling with childhood trauma, and a father on a transformative journey with his son. Each is somehow connected to the next, and as the story unfolds, their lives intersect in unimaginable ways.

Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same well-to-do mansion block in London for decades. She doesn’t talk about her escape from Nazi Germany at age 12. She doesn’t talk about the grim post-war years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn’t talk about her father, who was the commandant of one of the Reich’s most notorious extermination camps. Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can’t help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry’s beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel’s hard-won, self-contained existence.

This story starts with a family. For now, it is a father and a mother with two sons --- one with his father’s violence in his blood, one with his mother’s artistry. One leaves. One stays. They will be joined by others whose deeds will determine their fate. It is a beginning. Their stories will intertwine and evolve over the course of 2,000 years. They will meet again and again at different times and in different places. From Palestine at the dawn of the first millennium and journeying across 50 countries to a life among the stars in the third, the world will change around them, but their destinies remain the same. It must play out as foretold.

Maurice Swift is handsome, charming and hungry for fame. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, he has a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. Maurice quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful --- but desperately lonely --- older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall.

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery --- or at least, that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from --- and over his many years will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

When Pierrot becomes an orphan, he must leave his home in Paris for a new life with his aunt Beatrix, a servant in a wealthy Austrian household. But this is no ordinary time, for it is 1935 and the Second World War is fast approaching. And this is no ordinary house, for this is the Berghof, the home of Adolf Hitler. Pierrot is quickly taken under Hitler's wing and thrown into an increasingly dangerous new world: a world of terror, secrets and betrayal from which he may never be able to escape. This title has Common Core connections.

Propelled into the priesthood by a family tragedy, Odran Yates is full of hope and ambition. Forty years later, his devotion is caught in revelations that shatter the Irish people’s faith in the Catholic Church. He sees his friends stand trial, colleagues jailed and the lives of young parishioners destroyed. But when a family event opens wounds from his past, he is forced to confront the demons that have raged within the church and to recognize his own complicity in their propagation.

Eliza Caine’s life takes a drastic turn when her father, her only family, dies from a sudden illness. Trying to right herself, and find an escape from her sadness, she takes a job as a governess far from her home in London. Leaving everything she’s ever known, Eliza stumbles into a new life and soon finds herself questioning everything from her faith to her sanity.

Eighty-year-old Georgy Jachmenev is haunted by his past. Living in England with his beloved wife, Georgy prepares to make one final journey back to the Russia he once knew and loved. As he remembers days gone by, we are transported to St. Petersburg, to the Winter Palace of the czar, in the early 20th century --- a time of change, threat and bloody revolution. As Georgy overturns the most painful stone of all, we uncover the story of the house of special purpose.

Tristan Sadler is delivering a package of letters to the sister of Will Bancroft, the man he fought alongside during the Great War. As Tristan recounts the horrific details of what to him became a senseless war, he also speaks of his friendship with Will. The intensity of their bond brought Tristan happiness and self-discovery, as well as confusion and unbearable pain.

John Boyne's novel is the gripping story of two boys --- one the son of a commandant in Hitler's army and the other a Jew --- who come face-to-face at a barbed wire fence that separates, and eventually intertwines their lives.