A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 “‘Saint X’ is hypnotic. Schaitkin’s characters…are so intelligent and distinctive it feels not just easy, but necessary, to follow them. I devoured [it] in a day.” -Oyinkan Braithwaite, New York Times Book Review When you lose the person who is most essential to you, who do you become? Recommended by Entertainment Weekly, included in Good Morning …
Recommended by Entertainment Weekly, included in Good Morning America’s 20 Books We’re Excited for in 2020 & named as one of Vogue’s Best Books to Read This Winter, Bustle’s Most Anticipated Books of February 2020, and O Magazine’s 14 of the Best Books to Read This February!
Hailed as a “marvel of a book” and “brilliant and unflinching,” Alexis Schaitkin’s stunning debut, Saint X, is a haunting portrait of grief, obsession, and the bond between two sisters never truly given the chance to know one another.
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.
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Richly atmospheric, by turns coolly satiric and warmly romantic, Alexis Schaitkin’s brilliant debut novel Saint X imagines a chorus of voices in the aftermath of the alleged murder of a privileged American girl vacationing in an exotic Caribbean country. Part “true-crime” thriller and part coming-of-age novel narrated by the deceased girl’s younger sister, Saint X is irresistibly suspenseful and canny.
I love mysteries, especially ones that have deep psychological motivations. While I thought Saint X was amazing and hard to put down during the first third of the book, it lost so much steam as it diverged into different paths, different points of view, different lives–few of which seemed necessary. The result was that the story couldn’t sustain the tension the author had built so assiduously at the beginning. I skimmed much of the latter two-thirds of the book. The writing is superb and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of Schaitkin’s work in the future. The obsession of the main character was painful to read about, and the author did a convincing job of making us feel how tortured Emily’s soul was, but that alone wasn’t enough of a plot point to keep me riveted. I kept putting the book down and reaching for other books on my shelf, only going back to Saint X because it had been touted so much.
“Saint X” opens with a preview of what will come. Readers learn there are many versions of the Alison Thomas story, and now there will be another version of that disturbing, traumatic moment, one that separated events into before it and after it.
The omniscient narrator sets the tone with a present tense tone, instructing readers to look, to examine the vivid geography of this tiny Caribbean island. The account describes events about to unfold, comments on what is seen, and hints at what is yet to come. The manner is clinical, precise, and unemotional. The scenes are beautiful and multi-sensory; something is not purple but eggplant-colored; minutes do not pass but diffuse like perfume into the air. Readers want to go there, experience the island, relax, and enjoy. However, all that changes after the event, the discovery of a young girl’s body on the beach
The story of Alison Thomas, the family, the supporting characters, and island itself are complex and detailed. It is told from many points of view, and narrators weave in and out of the storyline, often unidentified by time, place, or person. It is up to the reader to interlace these complex parts into a detailed, complete whole. Everyone has part of the story to tell, and everyone played a part in the tragedy, but who, in addition to Alison, is the real victim over time. Perhaps all of them are.
Schaitkin created a narrative that is rich in dialogue and geography and still full of questions and uncertainty. Readers are as confused about what really happened as are the participants in this drama. In the end, the pieces fall together, but in the tale of a girl found dead on a tropical beach, there are no winners, only losers.
I received a review copy of “Saint X” from Alexis Schaitkin, Celadon Books, and Macmillan Publishing. The sense of place was dramatic, and the characters multifaceted. The multiple points of view made continuity difficult at times, but that also contributed to the intrigue. Who were these people? What part did they play in the drama? How did they get to today from 1995?
While on vacation with her family on the island of Saint X in the Caribbean, Alison mysteriously disappears, plunging her family into a state of turmoil, including her younger sister Claire, who is only seven years old. Several days later Alison’s body is found, but after the initial suspects are released the family is left without any answers.
Fast-forward a number of years and Claire, who now goes by Emily, is living in New York City and working in the publishing industry. When she gets into a cab driven by one of the men thought to have killed her sister, Emily’s life will forever change as she walks a fine line in her pursuit of the truth.
Alexis Schaitkin, weaving news articles, interviews, and voice recordings into the body of her novel, tells a story of obsession and discovery. I greatly enjoyed reading all of these various perspectives and voices and feel it added a lot to the mood of novel. I also enjoyed the characters she created and found myself having more sympathy for some than I thought I would when I began; her characters are so complete and extremely well-written.
Saint X is available February 18th from Celadon Books. Thank you to Celadon Books for an ARC of Saint X, given in exchange for an honest review.
I did both audiobook and read at night in bed.
When Claire was 7 years old, her and her family traveled to the caribbean island of Saint X. Her sister Alison ends up going missing. Days later her body is found. The 2 local men that are accused of murdering her, get released because there is just not enough evidence. Now years later, Claire is living in NYC and a chance encounter brings her in contact with Clive, one of the men that was originally suspected of killing her sister. Now Claire becomes obsessed with Clive, following him and befriending him, hoping he’ll slip up and she will get the truth.
I really enjoyed this one. It obviously reminded me alot of the Natalie Halloway case. I thought it was well written, although a little slow at times, I was so curious what information Claire would get from Clive, or if Clive would catch on to who Claire really was. Definitely would want to read more by this author.
I almost didn’t read this book. I read this book for a book club and this is the only reason I originally chose to stick with the book. Overall I enjoyed the storyline and I am glad I finished the book. However, I did not like the writing style of this book. I have never enjoyed books when they jump from past to present and the back to past nor do I tend to enjoy an omniscient narrator. At times I found it hard to care for any of the characters including Claire. I have mixed feelings for this book as the premise is interesting and the very end of the book was good. But for me most of the book was me just trying to make it through so I could say I finished it.
All thoughts and opinions are my own, and in no way have I been influenced by anyone.
SAINT X is extraordinary. From the opening scene, which plays out like a cinematic establishing shot of a Caribbean island, Alexis Schaitkin shows her readers that they are in masterful hands. The story is about a college student named Alison who is found dead at a Caribbean resort while on vacation with her family, and her younger sister, Claire, who, in the decades that follow, is left to grapple with and wonder who Alison really was. When a now-adult Claire encounters one of the men who was initially suspected in Alison’s death, the truth seems closer than ever, and she’ll risk everything to find out what really happened to her sister. I’ve seen this book billed as a thriller, but I disagree with that categorization. Instead, it’s an exquisitely nuanced exploration of privilege, race, and the subjective, blurry nature of truth. There were so many lines and passages in this book that took my breath away; Schaitkin is both poignant and profound in her prose, and every chapter is packed with astonishing insights into humanity. I can’t overstate how gorgeous the writing in this book is, or how vivid and relatable the characters, or how layered its themes. The ending is completely unexpected, and yet it’s inevitable and perfect, tying together all of the story’s various strands and packing a final, impressive punch. I highly recommend this beautiful page-turner.
I almost put the book down because of the shifting points of view. I’m glad I persisted as Schaitkin ties everything together in the end, and I liked getting the POV of everyone connected to the crime committed on a paradisal tropical island.
This is a richly drawn and thought-provoking story that delves into a young woman’s struggle to come to terms with her sister’s tragic death during a family vacation on Saint X. It’s a mystery, but it’s also much more than that. I found this book to be heartrending and very memorable.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.
What a debut novel! The writing is exceptional, character development is outstanding and there isn’t a slow spot in the entire book. An excellent book that will keep you engaged from start to finish, and beyond.
The Thomas family has picked the Caribbean island of Saint X to spend their winter vacation. 18-year old Alison is on a school break from Princeton and 8-year old Claire is the shy younger sister who idolizes her sister. On the last night of their vacation, Alison disappears and the search ends a few days later when her body is discovered on a nearby cay. Two local men, Clive and Eddie, are arrested. They are employees at the resort and have been seen partying with Alison, including the night she disappeared. However, given the timeline and lack of evidence, they are soon released. Nonetheless, the Thomas family believes their alibis have been fabricated by the locals in order not to disrupt the tourism to the tiny island.
The Thomas family dynamics are defined by Alison’s death and lack of answers. Yet, life goes on. 18 years later, Claire is living in New York. Her relationship with her parents is strained, and Claire still wonders about the sister she never really knew. When she enters a cab and realizes Clive is the driver, Claire is sure that he holds the answer to what happened to Alison. She is obsessed with Clive, and begins stalking him in hopes of gaining answers. I don’t think I will tell you any more of the story, but it is gripping.
The story is told from many perspectives: Alison, Claire, Clive and others. The other characters may only be a few paragraphs, but they show such different perspectives and help paint a picture of Alison. The book has a lot of themes–tragedy, grief, strength, resilience, obsession, race, privilege, relationships of all kinds, coming of age–but they are brilliantly woven together.
If you are looking for a novel with a lot of depth, I recommend this highly!
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This is a very well written novel about the mysterious death of a teen girl on a tourist island and the repercussions for many years after, especially for the younger sister of the girl. You can tell that the author has really done her research into island life and culture. The story wraps up nicely in the end.
The book went on. And on. And on. Irritating jumps in chapters and then lots of details. I mean LOTS of detail, making it a tedious read.
Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin
This is an incredible debut novel by Alexis Schaitkin, a master storyteller. Schaitkin weaved successfully the multiple point of views in telling this story, a deeply harrowing story of how people’s lives were affected by a mysterious death of a young woman vacationing with her family in the Caribbean Island of Saint X.
The story centers around Claire who was only seven at the time when her sister Alison disappeared and days later was found dead. Two men were questioned but soon released for lack of evidence. Alison’s death affected the family so much that they had to move and start new to Pasadena, California.
Many years later, Claire finds a job in New York and as fate would have it, takes a cab driven by Clive Richardson, one of the men originally suspected of murdering her sister.
Claire obsessed with finding the truth about her sisters’ death and in the pursuit starts to learn the truth about her who her sister really was and how Alison’s death affected much more than just their family.
Schaitkin’s brilliance was her writing style that I loved on how the prose and descriptions brings you into the story and to the characters’ most intimate thoughts. The detail made for a wonderful audio experience as well. The psychological perspective of those that have gone through a tragic death was spot on. The difficulties of how life just seems to stands still, the difficulty of moving on and finding that closure were all addressed so beautifully in this story.
The ending for me was emotionally charged and powerful. One of my most favorite conclusions that I have read. I highly recommend this book for the thought provoking issues that were addressed such as race, wealth, and privilege to name a few.
This was a well written book that I highly enjoyed very much and one that I would recommend to read!
Saint X will get under your skin so quickly, you’ll only be a few pages in before you can’t possibly put it down. It has everything – the Caribbean setting, a mystery, heartbreak, awful believability and that sense of a quickening pulse with every pages you turn. We may only be in March, but definitely one of the books of the year. Love finding truly original thrillers. For no particular reason it reminded me of The Dry, perhaps because of the unique setting and sense of revisiting the past. Cannot recommend this highly enough. Expect more great stuff from Alexis Schaitkin.
Beautiful, poetic, lyrical writing!
Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin is a hard novel to describe. It is a very immersive, multi-layered debut but I didn’t really like the ending and the pacing was a touch too slow for my liking. This is definitely the epitome of a slow burn, while being very interesting at the same time.
I listened to Saint X entirely on audio and it was very well done. When I saw there were fourteen narrators I was very worried that it would be confusing, but that wasn’t the case and I really liked the uniqueness. That being said, there were probably some unnecessary viewpoints in the book and some people may not like this. Lots going on and a lot of things distracting from the main plot of the novel which is ‘what happened to Alison?’
I also really liked the sound effects on the audio so I would highly recommending listening to the book. It made me feel like I was on an island during those periods of the novel, and while it’s not all set on the fictional Saint X, a lot of it was. It was nice to have a physical copy to know my place, but I didn’t find it confusing on audio at all.
Saint X has a lot going on to the point where it almost came off a bit messy, but I applaud the author for trying to fit so much into the story. I couldn’t believe how interesting it was even while being a slow burn. I enjoyed the island setting the most, and the characters were very dimensional. There are a few twists as well that I didn’t see coming, and while the ending lacked enough closure for me (I am very much someone who wants to know all of the facts at the end of a book), I was still fully immersed in the story the entire time I was reading it and overall I definitely enjoyed it.
Song/s the book brought to mind: 24 by Jem
Final Thought: If you like a slow burn with lots of viewpoints and lots of description, you should love Saint X. It wasn’t fully for me, but it was an enjoyable read/audiobook and it’s a thinker as well! I can’t wait to see what book Schaitkin will write next and I will definitely be picking it up!
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy of this book, all opinions and thoughts are my own.
I received an ARC digital copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
This story takes place in 1995 on Saint X an island in Indigo Bay. It seems to be narrated mostly by Claire with other people interjecting their point of view. The Thomas family is on vacation with other affluent families who can afford to escape the cold winter from which come.
Alison Thomas is a typical teenager attending Princeton and wishing she were anywhere but on a family vacation. Her little sister Claire (Clairey) is 7 years old and adores her older sister. The family lives in NYC and enjoying their time soaking up the sun at a luxurious resort. Just before the family is due to return to NYC, Alison goes missing.
Immediately, everyone becomes a suspect especially several resort workers with whom Alison befriended. Claire is aware of her sister’s late night escapades but always seemed to return before morning. Clive and Edwin are young and adventurous which is attractive to Alison who is bored with the tranquil island. Eventually, Alison’s body washes up on shore but the police are unable to determine what happened.
The years following her death overshadowed the lives of her family who never quite recovered from her loss. The family moves to Pasadena as they can no longer live in NYC with the reminders of Alison. Eventually, Claire moves back to NY but goes by the Emily I hopes of distancing herself from the past.
A chance encounter in a taxi cab sets Claire off on a mission to uncover the truths from the past. It begins to consume her daily life as she follows trails of what she believes will explain what happened to her sister.
The story explores how people want to present the best version of themselves to be accepted and valued by others. The ideas of success and actual success seem to vary greatly amongst people. It doesn’t matter whether you grew up with money or not, everyone experiences complicated and difficult situations in their lives. People believe what they want to believe to try to bring clarity to their existence. Needs and wants can often be jumbled ultimately influencing life decisions.
A life impacts all those around them.
Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin was THE book for me, the one I heard about and then sort of pined after, like a crush, until I finally got my hands on it. 2020 has a lot of promising new releases, Saint X is one of them and after reading it, after anticipating it and joining in on all the hype for it, I can say it is well deserved. Far more literary than I anticipated, Saint X is a lush, atmospheric suspense novel that will have you wondering if the truth will ever be known.
From the perspective of several narrators, Saint X takes readers on a journey to the Caribbeans where beautiful, 18-year-old Alison disappears, leaving behind her much younger sister Claire. We follow the sisters on their vacation, young Claire as she grows, older Claire as she goes from missing Alison to obsessing over her, and several of the secondary characters that were also impacted by the disastrous events of Alison’s death. I hated Claire and yet I understood her plight, her desperate need to know more. She derails her life for answers, willing to forego the fine, easy lifestyle she maintained for the truth. The characters, though certainly not all likable, are in many ways relatable. I could feel their emotions from the pages; Schaitkin really created an incredible complex set of narrators.
Okay, yes, I got bored reading. 50%-70% are just…hard chapters to get through. I didn’t connect to the characters, there were a lot of words, and it didn’t feel like we were getting anywhere. It was the slowest downward spiral for a character I had ever read, but I still couldn’t stop reading. The story I couldn’t put down was still there and I had to have my answers. Like the synopsis promises, Saint X is engrossing, the slow parts are certainly slow, but the mystery is so unique, the location so beautiful, that you must keep up with it.
Well-written and fascinating, Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin is an interesting dive into the perception people have of themselves and of others. There is a magnifying glass in this book, highlighting the impact that race and privilege ultimately played in Alison’s life before her death and after. I found myself thinking while reading, both about my experience and my perception of others, how often a story I see on the news is tainted by those perceptions. Far more than just a book of life and loss, Schaitkin doesn’t shy away from exploring themes of race, sexuality, and class in her debut novel, Saint X.
Upon reading the description of this book, I was very intrigued and had to read it and find out “whodunit”. I’m a sucker for murders, thrillers and mysteries and wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on your views), I got a whole different story.
At the beginning, we get a very detailed story about a vacation that Alison and her sister Claire were enjoying with their family on a remote island in the Caribbean. They are obviously a well to do family but the girls are separated by their age. I was waiting for longer than I thought I would before we got the news of Alison’s demise. But all the details were important into building up what type of people were involved in this case. It was a case of wealth, of privilege and race.
After the murder of Alison, we go on a journey to see how her family and friends fared through the years and how Claire is still looking for answers she didn’t know she needed. When she stumbles upon a man that may have had something to do with her sister’s death, I was definitely hooked and waiting for the other ball to drop. But I didn’t exactly get that. I got a lot of point of views from people that may or may not have had something to do with Alison, or maybe just people that were from the island and Alison’s life. This is where I would have to take off stars from the story. Too many characters and too many stories being told.
BUT, with that being said, with how the story was being told I could SEE this whole story being played out. I could see a movie or tv series being made about this very story. The descriptive narrative along with all the characters and their background, it HAD TO be slowly building up to something. This is where my star rating is a little confusing. I felt the story drifted from where it needed to go and had too many characters POVs. I wanted more action and not this slow build to what I thought was a mediocre climax. But if we didn’t have all these characters and their history and thoughts, the story would have fell a bit flat and wouldn’t have been as visually appealing. For this reason, I have to give the book 3.5 stars since it created such a visual impact by the characters and their narrative. I just wish it was more climatic and put together in a slightly more interesting manner.
Overall, the book intrigued me but didn’t excite me as I wish it would. I liked the way it was told and how we got to see a bit of how the sisters lived and who they were. Claire was an interesting character in that she felt a bit confused about herself, all her emotions and the way she was living her life. I just wanted more of a ‘punch in the gut’ feeling from her or from another important character she encountered.
“Alison’s death is a mystery like God or Stonehedge or intelligent life in the universe-if you aren’t careful, that sh$t will consume you, and in the end you’ll still be no closer to solving it. I’m 37 years old, and if I’ve learned anything it’s that you can live a pretty decent life without unpacking life’s mysteries.”