Saint X

Claire is the novel's protagonist. She is first introduced as a seven-year-old, when she is shy, with pale skin, even paler hair, “at once arresting and strange” (6). At this age, she develops a habit of moving her finger through the air—a compulsive need to spell out words. Claire is very dependent on her sister, Alison, who is 11 years older than her, particularly because of how difficult it is for Claire to make friends.

After Alison’s death and the family’s move to the West Coast, Claire reinvents herself. She starts going by Emily, her middle name, and she gains a social life that surprises her in its normalcy. Once she graduates from college, she moves to New York City, where eventually she becomes consumed by the mystery of Alison’s death. Her antisocial and compulsive behaviors return with a new intensity as she befriends Clive Richardson under false pretenses. She becomes obsessed with Clive and with piecing together not just what happened to Alison but who Alison was, until all other aspects of her life break down.

As this is ostensibly a murder mystery, Claire plays the role of the amateur detective following someone she thinks is her sister’s murderer. Claire’s obsession with “truth” and her role as an investigator transform once she gets as close to it as she can. She comes to the realization that her search was a desperate attempt to hold on to something from her past, and she finds she’s able to move forward by letting go.

Clive is the novel’s antagonist and the “suspect” Claire pursues when she becomes convinced he has murdered her sister. Clive grew up on Saint X, raised first in a chaotic environment by his single mother, and then by his grandmother, who showed him consistency. As a boy Clive is an overweight and shy kid, who, like Claire, has difficulty making friends. At the start of second grade, he has a stutter that often embarrasses him, and on the first day at his new school, Edwin gives him the nickname “Gogo,” after he stutters on the word “go” when asking to use the bathroom.

Clive finds a sense of belonging with Edwin. From that first day of second grade, he and Edwin are inseparable. Where Clive is timid, Edwin is fearless. Later, when Clive reflects on his life, he will often think about how frequently his actions were instigated by Edwin encouraging him, or even directing him outright.

One example of this is the day Edwin pushes Clive to talk to Sara Lycott, the girl Clive has been in love with for years. Their interaction leads to Sara’s pregnancy and the birth of their son, Bryan.

After Clive is questioned by police about Alison Thomas’s death and serves time for drug possession, he finds that the life he dreamed of on the island has become inaccessible to him. Sara rejects him as a father, and his community treats him as “untouchable” (255). Clive moves to New York City in the hopes of returning to Saint X one day, but this never happens. In New York, he often feels haunted by his past and perceives his life of being shaped by others, such as Edwin and even Alison. After a confrontation with Claire in which he tells her the truth about what happened the night Alison died, he moves away from New York to start fresh somewhere new. Clive is a foil for Claire because they are both living lonely lives in the wake of Alison’s death, though on different sides of the racial and socioeconomic spectrum. Though it is never stated directly, Clive may have needed to tell Claire the truth to move on with his life, just as she needed to hear it to move on with hers.

Edwin is a supporting character, revealed through the omniscient narrator in the first chapter and in Clive’s recollections throughout the book. When he is first introduced, Edwin is portrayed as gregarious and affable with the guests, but later on, once the narrative enters Clive’s perspective, we learn that he is critical and resentful of the American tourists for their ignorance and privilege. He habitually sleeps with the American girls who stay at Indigo Bay with their families.

Edwin has dreams of becoming a successful businessman in New York City, but he remains on Saint X for the duration of his life. A few years after Clive leaves Saint X, Edwin marries Sara Lycott, the mother of Clive’s son, and they have a son together. Edwin gets sick with what is likely AIDS, and dies before ever seeing Clive again. Edwin is a catalyst in the novel because his desire to sleep with Alison is what leads him and Clive to become involved with her. Though neither Edwin nor Clive is involved with Alison’s death, the event changes the trajectory of both of their lives.