Have You Seen Luis Velez?

"He closed his eyes and said a . . . well, it would not do to call it a prayer, because Raymond was not at all sure he thought there was a God. And even if there was, it would be terribly rude to come to him with a favor after all these years of not speaking. He had done so once earlier that morning, and it had felt entirely selfish and wrong. No, what he said was more of a whispered entreaty to no one in particular. Maybe out into the universe in case there was anything listening. Maybe to some less ruined part of himself."

Have You Seen Luis Velez? is a novel by best-selling American author, Catherine Ryan Hyde. In short succession, almost-seventeen-year-old Raymond Jaffe has said goodbye to his only friend, offered help to a ninety-two-year-old blind woman in his apartment block, and rescued a stray cat from probable torture.

Mildred Gutermann relies on Luis Velez to take her to the bank and the market, but he hasn't been for seventeen days by the time she waylays Raymond on the landing on his way to school. She is worried about Luis. Raymond is aghast at how little food Millie has left, gives her his granola bar breakfast, and fills Luis's role without hesitation.

Raymond is of mixed race and lives with his mother, a critical, stingy step-father and three step-sisters, but has always felt he doesn't fit there. Alternate weekends are spent with his well-off father whose new wife never hides her dislike of him. Nor does he fit in at school. Spending time with Millie, though, is not only a refuge from these uncomfortable situations but, to his surprise, Raymond finds that this old lady's company and conversation put him at ease. "It struck him odd that he'd had to come to the home of a blind woman to be seen clearly."

Hoping to avoid bringing her disappointing news, Raymond searches for Luis Velez without telling Millie. He has mixed feelings, though: would it be worse that Luis has stopped visiting because he has met with some sort of misfortune, or because he no longer cares about Millie? He finds the search challenging, although many of the people he meets are kind, even moreso when they learn what he is doing: kindness, like yawning, seems to be contagious.

Disheartened by the aftermath of the search, Millie seems to lose faith in humanity. Raymond worries she is withdrawing from life, but Millie assures him she intends to stick around, sharing a dream she had about a schoolfriend not fortunate enough to escape the Holocaust: "She said it was very selfish of me to base my participation in the world on whether the world was pleasing me at the moment. She said of course the world can be cruel; this is a given. She asked if I knew what she would have sacrificed to be ninety-two."

Raymond determines to bring her instances of goodness to balance out the moments of despair, and some of those kind people he encountered earlier play a role.

With one of the main protagonists being ninety-two years old, many words of wisdom could be expected, and most but not all are offered by Millie: "When it comes to seeing what is important about a person," she said, "I think it's possible that what our eyes tell us is only a distraction. Not that I wouldn't take them back if I could. Oh, I would. I miss seeing. But I also like the things I've learned to see without them."

At one point, she tells Raymond "We both know a strange truth about the world: that people judge you by your most controversial half. If you meet a person, Raymond, who is prejudiced, this person will not think to himself, 'This Raymond has a white half, and I will respect that half of him.' People judge you only by the half they don't like"

Ryan Hyde gives the reader a cast of mostly very appealing characters faced with the challenges of everyday life as well as lack of privilege, prejudice, survivor guilt, and loneliness. A certain aspect of the story will be reminiscent, for many readers, of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Once again, a moving, thought-provoking and uplifting read.