Review of Have You Seen Marie?

Feeling Presence Rather than Absence

By Cheryl Olsen

I first learned of this miraculous balm of a book last January when Sandra Cisneros sent it to me after my mother died. She asked me not to copy it or send it to anyone lest she get in trouble with her publisher. It came in the form of two Word documents, the text and afterword, attached to an email full of hard-won wisdom about dealing with being orphaned—at any age. One particularly endearing admission and caveat from Sandra about when her own mother died: “I also ate a lot of Garret’s caramel corn and gained a lot of weight then. I guess it’s a way of sweetening a bitter time.”

Something quite magical happened in the transition from Word document to illustrated hardbound “fable for adults.” Have You Seen Marie? weighs in at fewer than a hundred pages, and most of those are adorned with drawings by Sandra’s friend, internationally acclaimed visual artist Ester Hernández. This diminutive volume—6 ¾” x 6”—is something akin to a ring box, from its midnight cover with undulating lunar lines, to its understated shiny gold headband, to its promise of radiant contents. And it delivers on every facet of that promise.

From the dedication: “For those without a mother, without a father, without even a dog to make a bother,” to the opening with Marie the cat who had cried for three whole days on the ride from Tacoma to San Antonio, through the frenzied search for her, this unassuming little book takes readers on a journey that will surprise even the most hardened among us. As the first-person narrator and Marie’s owner scour the neighborhood, they meet a community representing virtually all ages, and races, and classes.

They encounter an assortment of too-busy-to-get-involved, life-goes-on-ers: A jogger mom pushing a baby in a runner’s buggy, out of sight before they even finish asking if she’s seen their kitty; kids who want to know how much the reward is; a voice behind a raggedy screen that says, “Can’t help,” and slams the door . . . As the search continues along the banks of the San Antonio, they also meet Reverend Chavana, who puts Marie on his request list to God; and an artist planting paperwhites in memory of her mother—“We didn’t say much to each other, but that said everything.”

From the bearded man in a wheelchair collecting cans from neighbors’ recycling bins, to the lesbian couple who share their dinner with the cat seekers to all the other friends and strangers along the way, readers will marvel at the ease—and inevitability—with which they extrapolate the lessons of a small community to the greater world and all its inhabitants. As Sandra points out in the Afterword, these are “stories the Alamo forgets to remember.”

From small to universal, from lost cat in unfamiliar place to bereaved adult with the raw emotions of the newly orphaned where she’s never been before, Have You Seen Marie? is ultimately a love story. Its particular alchemy of words, imagery, and life lessons, with its lush colors and lyrical rhythms is embodied in an ancient Texas cypress tree so old it has been there “since before before.”

The simple truth, as usual, is profound.