New Book Alert: Saint X by Alexis Schiatkin; Cause Celebre Crime Comes to Life in Fictional Caribbean Setting
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: There are certain true crime stories that we remember because of the intense media coverage. Names like Jaycee Duggard, Natalee Holloway, Elizabeth Smart, and Jonbenet Ramsey still get stuck in our minds. Terms like "Women in Jeopardy" or "Missing White Woman Syndrome" are used to describe these cases.
But what happens once the media circus is gone? The documentaries and movies have been filmed. The story gets trotted out once in awhile as a cautionary tale on the anniversary or a "where are they now" piece. What happens then?
These are the questions that are faced by the characters in Alexis Schiatkin's novel, Saint X. The murder of a young college student haunts family, friends, and the people who lived on the island where the murder happened. The characters have to fight through the public scrutiny and piece together their involvement in the murder and how their lives changed not only from the death but the suffocating publicity that came afterwards.
In the 1990's, Alison Thomas is visiting the fictitious Caribbean island of Saint X with her parents and younger sister, Claire. She and her family hang out at the beach, swim, play volleyball, and all of the other things that privileged white families do when they vacation on expensive islands filled with tourists and locals.
Alison sneaks out of the hotel to get high, dance, and have fun with the locals, all perfectly harmless until the last day of their vacation when Alison sneaks out and doesn't return. She is listed as a missing person and her disappearance receives a great deal of coverage. However, Alison's body turns up a few days later. Two Saint Xians, Edwin Hastie and Clive Richardson, who were the last to see Alison alive, are questioned and released. The case goes cold and remains unsolved as years go by.
Claire grows older, moves to New York City, and tries to put her past behind her. Her sister and the unanswered questions to her death continue to haunt Claire interfering with her attempts to get some hold onto her own life. Unfortunately, Claire has an encounter that forces her past forward. She catches a cab and is stunned to find that the driver is Clive Richardson, one of the Saint Xians who was the last to see Alison alive and was questioned about her death.
The book brims with sharp characterization and setting. It would be tempting to make this a fictionalized version of the Natalee Holloway story about the woman who went missing in Aruba. One way that Schiatkin does this is by creating a completely original setting so the novel is not pigeonholed by comparison with real life crimes. Saint X is solely created for the purpose of this novel.
That can be a slippery slope. The Saint Xians use pronuons "they," "he," "she," "I", or "we" in every instance instead of "him", "her," "them" etc. (For example, characters say "I gave it to he" instead of "I gave it to him.") In an era when a book like American Dirt exists and is the target of controversy, this can be somewhat jarring and could lead to uncomfortable accusations of stereotyping.
However, Schiatkin does a great job of describing the island itself with the flora, fauna, and topography. She makes the island come alive with description that activates the senses.
Not only the setting but Schiatkin considers such structures as the sociopolitical area, economic disparity, and race relations. This is particularly shown within the divide between the wealthy mostly white tourists and the impoverished black locals. Locals like Clive and Edwin have to live with abject poverty and a low employment outlook that causes many to leave the island. They barely tolerate the visitors who come expecting to be entertained and catch "the local experience" but depend on them for economic survival. So they bite their tongues and get to work with their wide and "Have a nice days" and "What can I get yous" while hiding exasperated eye rolls and sarcastic remarks. The young men like Edwin and Clive, can flirt with and romance the young visiting ladies as they do with Alison almost as a break from the hopelessness that they feel about their situation.
Alison is also looking to break her own tedium and feels ashamed at her privileged lifestyle. She bonds with Clive and Edwin out of boredom and to get away from the handsome Ivy Leaguers/College boys/MBA's at the hotel. She wants to experience real life outside of her comfort zone even if it's just as a tourist.
The crime aspect is top notch because Schiatkin focuses more on the aftermath rather than the crime itself. We get brilliant insights into what happens when a crime becomes a media frenzy. Claire despairs about the constant interview coverage and how the publicity was so intense that her family moved across the country.
Some humor is provided when Claire critiques a Lifetime Movie of the Week about her sister's murder. She mocks the loose party girl portrayal who was so different from the introspective woman that she knew. She also laughs at the obviouly evil hammy villain (called "Apollo") in the film. Despite the humor in the film, it is still a reminder of who her family lost. It's hard for Claire to move on when she is surrounded by constant reminders.
Schiatkin also writes how a crime affects many people involved, not just the victim, murderer, and their families. Throughout the book, multiple first person narratives are used from different characters who were at the hotel or were involved with either Alison, Clive, Edwin, or the investigation. We read this from people like the main investigator, Clive's girlfriend and her mother, and various witnesses such as a famous unnamed actor whose personal life made a steep downward descent since Alison's murder. Every person has their own separate story to tell, their own memories of the Thomas family, and their close proximity to what became a very newsworthy event. The characters's individualities come through in these chapters.
By far the strongest characters are Claire and Clive. Claire is someone who has physically grown older, but mentally and emotionally her development has arrested since those days at the beach. Her cell phone ring tone plays "Day O (The Banana Boat Song)", one of the songs that she heard during that fateful trip.
Claire works as an Assistant Editor for a publishing company that mostly specializes in True Crime books. While she claims that Alison's death has nothing to do with her current career choice, reading and editing books with similar stories to her sister's causes a lot of damage to her psyche especially when she reopens her own investigation into Alison's death. Claire has very few friends and no romantic ties. All she lives for are answers.
She even retains habits that she had as a child, particularly spelling words into the air with her finger. She tries to control that habit, but it is almost involuntary like she considers it communicating with her deceased sister. (In one eerie scene, another character recognizes her just from that habit.)
After Claire meets Clive, she ingratiates into his life by lying about her identity and faking a friendship with him just so she can finally get some final answers towards Alison's murder and whether Clive killed her. She has little regard for his feelings and whether she will hurt him. She doesn't even entertain the possibility that he might be innocent. She wants a confession from him and will sacrifice anything even her personal happiness and life to get it. Claire needs to receive closure towards her sister's death before she can move on.
Clive is also a fully realized character. His life was also shaped by Alison's disappearance and death. However, it doesn't define him as much as it does Claire. He is also driven by his economic situation and desires for a better life. He grew up in an impoverished village in Saint X. He had a childhood marked by unemployment, parental abandonment, and few opportunities. He is swept up by the schemes from his best friend, Edwin including drug dealing and romancing the wealthy female tourists.
Clive is also a father. His encounters with his young son and the boy's mother are some of the more moving passages in the entire book. He moves to New York, so he can make a life for himself and provide for the boy even if he doesn't get along with the boy's mother and maternal grandmother.
That's what makes Clive different from Claire. He has goals, ambitions, friends and family: things that Claire lacks because of her unwillingness to move on from Alison's death. As she stalks Clive, the Reader's sympathies change from the girl who misses her murdered sister to the man who befriends a potentially unstable stalker. We see that Claire and Clive are both damaged people and they both carry emotional scars from that day.
Saint X is a moving novel that asks to peer inside the media circus and see the individuals from within. Crime marked them, but it's the scrutiny, the loss, guilt, and questions that remain with them.
