Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

Saint X

A Novel

Audiobook
2 of 7 copies available
2 of 7 copies available

A New York Times Notable Books of 2020
"Alexis Schaitkin's splashy debut novel, Saint X, is an audiobook lover's dream...Queue this one up for a murderous, dreamy delight." — Paste
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 menemployees at the resortare 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 truthnot 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 fans 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.
Praise for Saint X:
"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

"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 rape/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." — Joyce Carol Oates

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 9, 2019
      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 who visit it. In 1995, a couple from a New York City suburb and their two daughters, adventurous college freshman Alison and cautious seven-year-old Claire, visit a resort on the island. Alison flirts with two workers at the resort, Clive and Edwin, and takes off with them nightly without her parents’ knowledge to visit a local club, where she dances, drinks, and gets high. One night, she doesn’t return, and her body is soon found on a nearby island. Though suspicion falls on Clive and Edwin, they are not charged with any crime. In present-day N.Y.C., Claire, who narrates much of the novel, recognizes Clive, now a cab driver, from the back seat of his taxi. Obsessed with learning what happened to Alison, she stalks him while neglecting her work and friends. As Claire embeds herself in Clive’s life, he grows increasingly wary, until he finally snaps and reveals what he knows about the final night of Alison’s life. As the novel gradually shifts to Clive’s point of view, Schaitkin subverts the other characters’ assumptions about the lives and intentions of strangers. This is a smart page-turner, both thought-provoking and effortlessly entertaining. Agent: Henry Dunlow, Dunlow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Fresh voice talent Dana Dae leads a cast of 15 actors who deliver a cinematic atmosphere in this intricate story of a family that is vacationing at an exclusive Caribbean resort. While visiting, their 18-year-old daughter disappears and is found washed up on the beach two days later. The circumstances of her death are never solved. Seventeen years later the girl's younger sister, portrayed by Dae, tries to make sense of her sister's tragic death, and this is where the ensemble approach of the novel pays great dividends. The separate and distinct voices of college friends, the sisters' mother, diary entries, and a handful of Jamaican-accented former resort employees deftly magnify the complex issues of race, class, and gender that come together in the heartrending conclusion. B.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading
The Beehive Library Consortium is a consortium of member libraries and the Utah State Library Division.Funds for this program were made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Parents should be aware that children have access to all materials in the online library. The Beehive Library Consortium does not monitor or restrict your child's selections. It is your responsibility as a parent to be aware of what your child is checking out and viewing.