Saint X

A stunning debut, a haunting portrait of grief, race, obsession and the bond between two sisters never truly given the chance to know each other.

'Hypnotic, delivering acute social commentary on everything from class and race to familial bonds and community . . . I devoured Saint X in a day.' - New York Times***, Oyinkan Braithwaite (author of My Sister, The Serial Killer)*

Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister Alison vanishes from the luxury resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X on the last night of her family's vacation. Several days later Alison's body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released.

Years later, riding in a New York City taxicab, Claire recognizes the name on the cabbie's licence, Clive Richardson - her driver is one of the men originally suspected of murdering her sister and the fateful encounter sets her on an obsessive pursuit of the truth. But as Claire doggedly shadows Clive, hoping to gain his trust, waiting for the slip that will uncover the truth, an unlikely intimacy develops between them, two people whose lives were forever marked by a tragedy.

Alexis Schaitkin's Saint X is a flawlessly drawn and deeply moving story that hurtles to a devastating end.

Engrossing

Autorentext
Alexis Schaitkin's short stories and essays have appeared in many literary journals and newspapers. 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 Massachusetts with her husband and son. Saint X is her debut novel.