Celadon Books, 368 pages, $16.99 (c2021)
“Saint X” initially presents a typical murder mystery scenario. A well-off family from White, Upper Middle Class America takes a vacation on an island somewhere in the Caribbean. Saint X could be any of a number of islands with rum drinks with little umbrellas in them. It could be any island with beautiful sand, inviting turquoise waters. It could be any island with a top-end resort. It could be any island with a resort staffed by smiling locals who have one of the charming, tourist-friendly Caribbean accents.
Perhaps the book is like Agatha Christie’s “A Caribbean Mystery.” Then, again, it may be something unexpected.
Alison is the teenage personality at the center of the book, but we hear her first-person voice only in her taped diaries. And how reliable can a teenage diary be? At the time of her death, Alison is 18 or 19 years old. She has just taken a break from an Ivy League college to travel with her family (mother, father, 7-year-old sister, Claire) to the island with the placeholder name of “Saint X.”
Claire adores her older sister and follows her when she can. Alison likes to break away from her family to join other young people in beach games and beach flirting. Two interesting locals staff the beach section. They carry chairs and towels, serve food and drinks, clean up mistakes, and acquire the forbidden drug or two for the guests. Alison makes their acquaintance. Soon, she is disappearing from the hotel after her sister has fallen asleep.
The night before they are set to return home, her family is befuddled when Alison is nowhere to be found. Sadly, her body is found on Faraway Island (ironically named because it is very close by) in the haunted pool at the base of the island’s waterfall. Legend has it that a woman with long black hair and hooves instead of feet haunts the island, drawing unwary people to their deaths in the pool at the base of the waterfall.
The local police slowly eliminate the suspects, even the most likely, the two staff members whom Alison liked to hang with. When the coroner cannot even determine if Alison was murdered, her parents finally leave the island with angry, resentful hearts. Little Claire’s obsessive tendencies are more intense. She draws in the air with her finger. She is within herself and it would be a wonder if she emerged undamaged from the ordeal.
This part of the tale only takes up a fourth of the book. In flashforwards and flashbacks, more of Alison’s tale is told. But in the end, it is not really Alison’s tale but Claire’s and Gogo’s (one of the local staff suspected of murdering Alison). Also, thoughts by other peripheral characters are inserted, too. It’s a juggling act that author Alexis Schaitkin performs. She never gives too much away at one time.
Claire has the main first-person voice. Most of her tale takes place about twenty years later. She is working in New York when a chance meeting with Gogo occurs. The narrative is riveting (but not thrilling in “that” way), sensitive, intense, clouded and then clear. The murder mystery is not really solved in a traditional fashion, and it truly becomes less murder mystery than an exploration of what tragedy and misfortune do to people with sensitive souls.
Although “Saint X” did not take me where I expected, it was a wonderful journey. I thought this was a remarkable book.
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