Saint X - Alexis Schaitkin

As soon as I started reading the book it made me think back to the Natalee Holloway story, and how she disappeared from the island of Aruba and her body was never found. I remember the story so well because it coincided with my move to NYC from London, and followed the news closely at the time. Saint X isn’t a murder mystery though, it’s a beautiful journey into the trails of life, loss, obsession, and the destruction that our actions, and the truth, sometime cause on our own lives and those of others.

Alison and Claire’s family spend a week on a tropical island every winter, and in 1995 they spent an idyllic break on a resort on the island of Saint X. Alison was 18 years old at the time, and Claire, 7. At the end of the vacation Alison disappears, and her body is found a few days later. A couple of men from the island are held as lead suspects for a few days and then released, and Alison’s death remains an unsolved mystery. Until years later Claire, now named Emily, randomly runs into one of those men in NYC…

The author’s writing style was a little jarring for me at first, but it didn’t take me long to get into the book, and appreciate how she describes the island and the people. You can honestly imagine yourself right there, taste the salt on your lips, sitting invisible there between the tourists and the sea. And once we moved to present day Emily (Claire) narrating her story I was hooked. Alexis Schaitkin has a way of describing settings in such a way that you are plunged into them, recognize them, even relate to them. So many of the NYC images are one that I recognize from my own 12 years of living there, and pulled at my heartstrings.  Reading this book felt at times like reading my love story of NYC and it felt wonderful to read something where you felt like the author knew the city in the same way you did. 

I did not read this as a murder mystery book, and I don’t think it is meant to read as that. It is much more a deep dive into humans and how we react at the fact of sudden death, at how our lives are never exactly as they appear to others, and how, in the end, we are all mysteries to each other. I felt for each of the characters, mainly both Emily and Clive, and wanted to shake them both so many times too: what on earth were they doing?? The story is haunting, sticks to you, makes you wonder how you would react if something like this happened to you or someone close to you. 

The attention to detail in this novel is simply amazing. No stone is left uncovered, every person who may have had a part in Alison’s story gets to say their piece and talk about their own lives. I really enjoyed the way the narrators changed through the book, while Emily/Claire is the main protagonist we are also able to hear the voices of those who were affected by Alison and by her death in different ways. This is a giant of a book and I fully appreciate how invested the author must have been in the story and how long this must have taken to write. This is why I took my time reading it and savored each page - it’s not a novel you can rush through, but one that you live through.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.