Earth is the second in John Boyne’s new quartet of novellas named after the four elements. I enjoyed the first book, Water, so I was looking forward to this one and it didn’t disappoint. Although the two books (and presumably Fire and Air as well) are loosely linked, they are completely separate stories and you don’t need to read them in order. If you have already read Water, you may remember Evan Keogh, the teenage boy we last saw leaving his home on a small Irish island in search of a new life in England. Earth is Evan’s story.

Evan has had a talent for football from an early age, but his true passion is for painting and on his arrival in London he hopes to pursue a career as an artist. After a series of rejections he is forced to accept that he’s unlikely to achieve his dream and with his money running out he reluctantly decides that he will have to use his football skills after all. The book begins with Evan, now twenty-two and a famous footballer, preparing to stand trial for sexual assault. Robbie, his friend and teammate, is accused of rape and Evan has been charged as an accessory for filming the incident on his phone.

For such a short book (under 200 pages), Boyne manages to create a multi-layered story covering a range of important – and often uncomfortable – topics. Much of Evan’s story is told in flashbacks as he remembers his childhood, his strained relationship with his father and his growing awareness of his sexuality (Evan is gay, which can make life difficult both in his small Irish community and in the world of professional football). When he arrives in London he is taken advantage of by an older man who pushes him into work as a male escort, which has disastrous results for Evan. This is what leads to Evan’s decision to become a footballer, despite his dislike of the sport – and again I thought it was interesting to see how Boyne explores the idea of someone achieving huge success in a profession that they don’t enjoy and don’t respect, as well as the various ways in which young men cope with suddenly attaining a level of fame that they’re not really prepared for.

The trial is also a main focus of the book and I found it increasingly frustrating and infuriating to see how the victim was treated in court. I hoped Evan would do the right thing and not just try to protect his friend, but Boyne keeps us doubting him throughout the novel and I’m not going to tell you whether I got the outcome I wanted. Obviously there have been many real life cases of women making allegations of sexual assault against famous people and the courtroom scenes are all the more disturbing because you can easily imagine them happening.

Like ‘water’ in the previous book, Boyne works the element of earth into the story in several different ways, from the soil of Evan’s island home to the ground beneath his feet that is so important to his sport. Of the two, I think I preferred Water but both are powerful books and I’m now looking forward to Fire, coming in November of this year.

Thanks to Doubleday for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.