Saint X
Alexis Schaitkin, 2020
Celadon Books
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250219596
Summary
When you lose the person who is most essential to you, who do you become?
Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister, Alison, disappears on the last night of their family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison’s body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men–employees at the resort–are arrested.
But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. The story turns into national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved. For Claire and her parents, there is only the return home to broken lives.
Years later, Claire is living and working in New York City when a brief but fateful encounter brings her together with Clive Richardson, one of the men originally suspected of murdering her sister.
It is a moment that sets Claire on an obsessive pursuit of the truth–not only to find out what happened the night of Alison’s death but also to answer the elusive question: Who exactly was her sister? At seven, Claire had been barely old enough to know her: a beautiful, changeable, provocative girl of eighteen at a turbulent moment of identity formation.
As Claire doggedly shadows Clive, hoping to gain his trust, waiting for the slip that will reveal the truth, an unlikely attachment develops between them, two people whose lives were forever marked by the same tragedy.
For readers of Emma Cline’s The Girls and Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, Saint X is a flawlessly drawn and deeply moving story that culminates in an emotionally powerful ending. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Alexis Schaitkin’s short stories and essays have appeared in Ecotone, Southwest Review, Southern Review, New York Times, and elsewhere. Her fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Schaitkin received her MFA in fiction from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her husband and son. Saint X is her debut novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Any death of course creates aftershocks among those closest to the deceased, but we rarely spare a thought for those on the fringes. Schaitkin does, demonstrating in no more than a few pages each how Alison's passing affects her various satellites: her teacher, roommate, a random man on holiday, an actor, the girlfriend of the suspect and so on. The connections are faint, the domino effect crystal clear. All these sub-narratives dedicated to minor and major characters, chapters that do little to move the plot along, could easily have resulted in a novel that buckled under the weight of its structural ambitions, but Schaitkin pulls it off without a hitch.… Saint X is hypnotic, delivering acute social commentary on everything from class and race to familial bonds and community…. I devoured Saint X in a day.
Oyinkan Braithwaite - New York Times Book Review -
A smart, socially conscious thriller that will take you away.
People
There’s one moment in every person’s life, posits Saint X, that will define the rest of it. For many in this novel, it’s the death of Alison Thomas, a teenage girl who perishes while vacationing with her family on a Caribbean island. The mystery remains unsolved until years later, when her sister Claire runs into one of the original suspects in New York and befriends him, hoping to piece together what happened to Alison. Claire’s obsessive pursuit of the truth gives Alexis Schaitkin’s debut the urgency of a thriller, but its most compelling chapters take the perspectives of peripheral characters, whose accounts alter our understanding of Alison’s death–and of where it happened: a cruel, fragile paradise.
Entertainment Weekly
Schaitkin’s unsettling debut plays with the conventions of the romantic thriller to comment on the uneasy relationship between working-class residents of a fictional island in the Caribbean and the wealthy American tourists…. This is a smart page-turner, both thought-provoking and effortlessly entertaining.
Publishers Weekly
While point-of-view shifts may be confusing…, the richness of the characters makes the attempt worthwhile. Questions of race and privilege deepen the impact of the characters' struggles…. Readers who enjoy a mystery with emotional depth will find this a compelling and impressive debut. —Julie Ciccarelli, Tacoma P.L., WA
Library Journal
Magnetic…a nuanced examination of class, privilege and the terrible ways that tragedy can echo forward in time. Schaitkin embellishes a strong plot with psychologically complex main characters…. This is a must-read for fans of literary suspense.
BookPage
(Starred review) The death of a teenage vacationer on a fictional Caribbean island reverberates through many lives, particularly those of her 7-year-old sister and one of the workers at the resort.…This writer is fearless, and her…killer debut is a thriller…and insightful study of race, class, and obsession.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does the island setting contribute to the story? What about the juxtaposition of New York City?
2. What do you think Claire’s habit of writing words in the air with her finger demonstrates about her?
3. What’s the symbolism of Faraway Cay and the woman with hooves for feet? What does that mythology add to the story?
4. Why do you think the author chose to intersperse the voices of minor characters, such as the movie actor and other vacationers, throughout the book? What effect does this achieve?
5. What does Claire’s name change to Emily signify to you?
6. Did you ever think Clive might pose a threat to Emily when he found out who she was?
7. What does Clive’s nickname Gogo indicate about his personality? About Edwin’s?
8. Emily’s world in New York becomes very small after she encounters Clive. Do you think that was intentional or unintentional on her part? What might have motivated her to turn inward?
9. What do Alison’s recorded diary entries reveal to Emily? Was Emily right to listen to them, or do you think it was an invasion of privacy? What about their mom?
10. What are the similarities between Emily’s life in New York and Clive’s? What are the differences?
11. What do you think about Edwin’s relationship with Sara?
12. Alison witnessed a pivotal moment in Clive and Edwin’s relationship. How did that shape the rest of the narrative—Clive and Edwin’s relationship, their futures, Alison’s tragedy?
13. When Emily learns the truth, and remembers the night before Alison disappeared, what do you think is her primary emotion? Grief? Relief? Guilt? Something else?
14. Do you think Emily coming into Clive’s life was ultimately a bad thing or a good thing for Clive?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)