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About this item
Highlights
- A New York Times Notable Book of 2020, now a Hulu Original Series!
- About the Author: Alexis Schaitkin's short stories and essays have appeared in Ecotone, Southwest Review, The Southern Review, The New York Times, and elsewhere.
- 352 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Women
Description
About the Book
"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."--Book Synopsis
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020, now a Hulu Original Series!
"'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 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.
Review Quotes
"'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
--Joyce Carol Oates
"Saint X, Alexis Schaitkin's atmospheric new novel, is ostensibly about a young American girl who goes missing while on a family vacation in the Caribbean. But it is more than that. The book also unpacks timely social and cultural issues -- about grief, truth, white privilege and our murder-as-entertainment culture."
-Washington Post "A smart, socially conscious thriller that will take you away."
-People Magazine, Book of the Week "This debut novel is hypnotic, delivering acute social commentary on everything from class and race to familial bonds and community, and yet its weblike nature never confuses or fails to captivate."
--New York Times, Editors' Choice "This writer is fearless, and her gamble pays off. This killer debut is both a thriller with a vivid setting and an insightful study of race, class, and obsession."
--Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW "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."
--Entertainment Weekly "One of the year's buzziest debuts."
--Bustle, The 22 Most Anticipated Books of February 2020
"Saint X is slightly miraculous. Funny, chilling, moving, and throughout, deeply intelligent. We follow Emily into the depths of her obsessive quest with fascination and, in the end, rise with her as she moves on. This is an utterly original and engrossing novel written with the surest possible hand."
--Christopher Tilghman, Author of Thomas and Beal in the Midi
"Here is a marvel of a book, a kaleidoscopic examination of race and privilege, family and self, told with the propulsive, kinetic focus of a crime novel. Brilliant and unflinching, Saint X marks the debut of a stunningly gifted writer. I simply couldn't stop reading."
--Chang-rae Lee, Author of On Such A Full Sea "Alexis Schaitkin's stunning debut novel is an examination of race, privilege, family and self as a teenage girl vanishes during her family's luxury Caribbean vacation on the island of Saint X. Though the lives of the privileged tourists and the island locals are seemingly unrelated, in the aftermath of this single dramatic event, they're inextricably bound to each other forever."
-Good Morning America, 20 Books We're Excited for in 2020
About the Author
Alexis Schaitkin's short stories and essays have appeared in Ecotone, Southwest Review, The Southern Review, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Her fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She 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.Dimensions (Overall): 9.3 Inches (H) x 6.4 Inches (W) x 1.4 Inches (D)
Weight: 1.2 Pounds
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Number of Pages: 352
Genre: Fiction + Literature Genres
Sub-Genre: Women
Publisher: Celadon Books
Format: Hardcover
Author: Alexis Schaitkin
Language: English
Street Date: February 18, 2020
TCIN: 76942216
UPC: 9781250219596
Item Number (DPCI): 247-02-8320
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported
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Shipping details
Estimated ship dimensions: 1.4 inches length x 6.4 inches width x 9.3 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 1.2 pounds
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50% would recommend
4 recommendations
Horrible
1 out of 5 stars
Thumbs down graphic, would not recommend
Shelby - 2 years ago, Verified purchaser
I would honestly not recommend this book. I only got a few pages in but there was already so much unnecessary detail, I don’t need to know everything about the other islands. I know this was the author’s debut novel but I don’t get how it was made into a show or that it got published.
Saint X Review
4 out of 5 stars
Thumbs up graphic, would recommend
ojoausana - 5 years ago
*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Was lucky enough to get this for free after seeing it on BookishFirst and wanting to read the whole book, I had seen the book previously on GoodReads but it was a soso book for me as a To Be Read in the first place.
This book was odd, and not what I thought it was. at first I had little interest, read the first few chapters, was hooked, interest dropped off, and was hard to pick back up partially because of the layout but that might have been due to it being an advanced copy but it made it hard to tell when the point of view switched which was annoying and odd but not a total deal breaker so I bumped the score up to a 4 from a 3.5.
I also liked most of the characters and liked how the characters had growth, that's super great ngl!
X Doesn't Mark The Spot
3 out of 5 stars
Thumbs down graphic, would not recommend
- 5 years ago
Thank you in advance to Celadon Books for sending me this novel to review. A positive review was not required and all views are my own.
“Saint X” is a fictional Caribbean Island. And, while some reviewers will immediately think of Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance from Aruba – readers will be surprised to learn that Schaitkin did not use that as her guide. Yet, some readers might draw the parallel and will be disappointed.
“Saint X” is told from multiple POVs – Claire/Emily, Clive, and several minor characters in a bold face type usually at the end of a “chapter”. Though often it is hard to tell which POV is narrating the “mystery scenes”. Rather than number her chapters, Schaitkin names them to coincide where the story is taking place.
Claire is seven (7) years old when her college age sister Alison disappears on the last night of the family’s vacation on the Caribbean Island of Saint X in 1995. Alison’s body is discovered several days after she went missing.
The Thomas family makes a move out to Pasadena, where Claire becomes Emily – using her middle name.
Her life is changed and not quite the same. Her family still wants the truth of Alison’s death and more so when suspects are found but released when the evidence and timeline doesn’t align with the facts. Ultimately it is decided that Alison’s death was an accident – but her parents refuse to accept that.
Now, as an adult, Emily is living in New York and soon connects with one of the suspects in her sister’s disappearance and murder. It is more by accident than actual planning.
Emily is determined to find the truth about her sister’s death – to get to the bottom of it. It turns from a fact-finding mission to an over-consuming obsession that overwhelms not only her personal life, but work life as well as she lags behind in her work responsibilities so much so that it has dire consequences. Emily is also learning that the Alison she knew isn’t the one that she gets to know. Still, she can’t let go.
Alison, in death, has consumed Emily’s life. Emily begins dogging Clive, trying to get him to slip up, find something that can convince her that he murdered her sister.
But, just as Emily thinks she’s learned the truth – only it’s a truth she’s always known. Readers will be surprised to learn the truth as well. And, in the end, Emily/Claire learns that the truth sometimes does nothing for us. Is seeking closure about hanging on, or letting go?
The end was not what I was expecting, then again that’s probably what the writer had intended. It was a different and unique novel. I was expecting one ending and wound up with an entirely different ending.
Schaitkin weaves in the past and current stories of other characters central to the story – Clive as well the minor voices we hear in it, mostly at the end of a chapter. Though, at times it seems unnecessary and can clutter up the story. It does well to describe the differences between the islanders who live there from day to day and the vacationers.
As one reviewer stated – it was like they were reading, yet making no progress. After reading that review, I will state that I felt the same way. I do believe that some of the writing could’ve been halved and the story would’ve worked out the same.
If you’re looking for a murder-mystery, you won’t find it in this novel. There is no intrigue. In fact, I’m not sure what it is. I don’t know if that is good or bad.
A compelling and intelligent mystery
4 out of 5 stars
Thumbs up graphic, would recommend
lurkykitty - 5 years ago
When Claire is only seven years old, her eighteen year-old sister Alison disappears and is found dead when their family takes a vacation on a Caribbean island. This book takes place mostly in NYC where Claire, now called Emily, is a young adult working at her first job. By happenstance, she runs into one of the men from the island who was accused of killing her sister, but was not convicted due to lack of evidence. She befriends this man to learn more about what happened to her sister, to the detriment of her own mental health. The initial impression of this book was that it would be a fast paced thriller with a stunning conclusion. However, it is more a commentary on unresolved grief, the assumptions that are made based on race and class, and how one event can shatter the lives of so many. It could still be categorized as a mystery. I found the multiple points of view valuable in understanding the characters and events. Even though, at times, Saint X did not move quickly, it was still a compelling and interesting read.