Saint X

Saint X is a 2020 debut novel by the American writer Alexis Schaitkin and a 2023 Hulu television series adapted from it. Both tell the story of Alison Thomas, an 18-year-old American woman who dies mysteriously during a family vacation on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint X, and of her younger sister Claire, who years later pursues the truth about the death. The story is told across multiple timelines and is framed as an interrogation of the "girl-gone-missing" genre and of media fascination with the deaths of young white women.^{1 • 2}

The novel

Alexis Schaitkin's Saint X was published on 18 February 2020 by Celadon Books, her first novel.³ It was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2020 and appeared on "best of" and "most anticipated" lists from Entertainment Weekly, Good Morning America, Bustle, Vogue, and O Magazine.^{4 • 10} The French edition, Un si joli nulle part, translated by Emmanuelle Aronson, was published in January 2022 by Les Escales.³

In 1995, 18-year-old Alison Thomas dies while on holiday at the Indigo Bay resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X with her wealthy family, and her body is discovered. Edwin and Clive, two Black men who reside on the island and are employed by the resort, are seen in Alison's company on the night of her death. They are arrested but not charged; local police determine they cannot rule out an accidental death, and the case remains unresolved.^{2 • 10}

Much of the book takes place years later and alternates between the perspectives of Alison's younger sister Claire and of Clive. Claire, who was 7 when her sister died, has moved to New York and goes by her middle name, Emily. A chance encounter with Clive reopens the trauma and draws her into an obsessive search for the truth, part of which involves following him and trying to win his confidence.^{2 • 3}

Schaitkin, who was fascinated by the JonBenét Ramsey case as a child, set out to subvert the "dead white girl" or "pretty missing girl" trope. She described the book as interrogating public interest in such stories and what it means to sensationalize some deaths while ignoring others: she aimed "to write a 'dead girl story' that's about our fascination with these dead girl stories."²

Themes

Privilege, class, and race run through both versions of the story. An omniscient narrator enters the perspectives of resort guests at Indigo Bay, showing how they grapple with the invisible labor that maintains their vacation; one father notices the seaweed raked from the sand each morning and is unsettled by how it taints his enjoyment of the resort. Emily, living as a gentrifier in Flatbush, Brooklyn, experiences a version of the same self-consciousness about her own privilege.¹¹

The novel also treats identity as fragmented. Claire splits into two versions of herself, the child she was and the adult Emily who emerged after the death, and she reads her sister's diary as a mixture of truth and untruth, concluding that she must understand "how truth and untruth make each other." Her pursuit of Clive requires her to compartmentalize the man she suspects of violence from the man she befriends, a construct she eventually recognizes as her own creation.¹¹

The television adaptation

The push to adapt the book began before publication: the manuscript went out to editors and production studios in June 2018, and TV offers arrived within about a month of the book's sale to its publisher.² Leila Gerstein, creator of Hart of Dixie and a consultant on The Handmaid's Tale, wrote and executive produced the series, with Dee Rees among the directors; other directors included Darren Grant, Patricia Riggen, Matt Sobel, and Ekwa Msangi.^{3 • 7} Schaitkin is listed as an executive producer but was not involved in the adaptation itself.²

The eight-episode series premiered on Hulu on 26 April 2023, with the first three episodes released that day and the remaining episodes weekly through 31 May.⁵ The cast is led by Alycia Debnam-Carey as Emily, Josh Bonzie as Clive "Gogo" Richardson, West Duchovny as Alison, and Jayden Elijah as Edwin, with Betsy Brandt and Michael Park as Alison's parents Mia and Bill, Bre Francis as Sara, and Kenlee Anaya Townsend as young Claire.^{1 • 5}

Changes from the book. Showrunner Gerstein shifted the central question from the book's "Who was my sister?" to "What happened to my sister?"² Structurally, the novel keeps its timelines largely separate, alternating present-day chapters of Emily and Clive with interstitial vignettes about background characters, while the series braids four narrative arcs, the Thomases' week at the resort, Clive's upbringing on the island, and Emily's and Clive's contemporary perspectives, evenly across the eight episodes, and expands the resort timeline into more of an ensemble story.⁸ The show also expands Emily's world: in place of the isolated book version, TV Emily has a close friend and coworker named Sunita, a boyfriend who is a civil-rights lawyer, and a therapist she has seen since a breakdown years earlier.⁸

The series is loosely inspired by the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, though it is not a ripped-from-the-headlines account of that case.¹²

Reception

Critical response to the series was mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 holds a 19% Tomatometer from 21 reviews, while audiences rated it 83% on the Popcornmeter; the IMDb rating is 6.4.^{9 • 7} ELLE's review judged that the series occasionally floundered in exploring its themes without Schaitkin's authorial voice, while crediting the performances of Debnam-Carey, Duchovny, and especially Bonzie, whom it called the show's breakout star.⁸ The series won a 2024 Leo Award for Best Cinematography in a Dramatic Series.¹³

The series ran for one season and was canceled. In the United States it streams on Hulu; internationally it is available on Disney+ in about 60 countries.^{6 • 14}

References

1. Saint X, Hulu Press
2. Laura Zornosa, "Saint X Isn't Your Typical 'Missing White Woman' Story," TIME, 26 April 2023
3. Hocine Bouhadjera, "Un si joli nulle part d'Alexis Schaitkin adapté en mini-série," ActuaLitté, 25 January 2022
4. Saint X: A Novel, Macmillan Publishers
5. Saint X, epguides.com Titles & Air Dates Guide
6. Saint X, Next Episode
7. Saint X, JustWatch (UK)
8. Keely Weiss, "How Hulu's Saint X Series Differs from the Book," ELLE, 26 April 2023
9. Saint X, Rotten Tomatoes
10. Saint X Summary and Study Guide, SuperSummary
11. Saint X Themes, SuperSummary
12. Alexis Schaitkin news, IMDb (The Hollywood Reporter coverage)
13. Saint X, TV Guide
14. Where to Watch Saint X (2023), FlickFinder

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Psychological and domestic thrillers

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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