Product Description

Who Would Have Thought It? is a historical romance which engages the dominant myths about nationality, race and gender prevalent in society in the U.S. prior to and during the Civil War. The narrative follows a young Mexican girl as she is delivered from Indian captivity in the Southwest and comes to live in the household of a New England family. Culture and perspectives on national history and identity clash in the face of the dominant society's opportunism and hypocrisy. This early Hispanic historical romance, originally published in 1872, indicts the racism that was so prevalent in the 19th century.
As in her first novel, The Squatter and the Don, Ruiz de Burton reserves critical barbs for corruption in government and United States expansionism under the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. However, it is the recasting of the conventional novel of domesticity that Who Would Have Thought It? also addresses the disenfranchisement of women. Ruiz de Burton's deft character portrayals and satirical style make for a highly readable and enjoyable novel.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #843471 in Books
• Published on: 1995-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 298 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The insights into class and race in this clever satire set during and after the Civil War give it a thoroughly contemporary feel. It is even more astounding, then, to learn that it was first published in 1872, and that the author was not even a native English speaker. Burton (The Squatter and the Don) was a Baja California native who married a colonel in the Union Army, and here she combines to good effect both solid insider information and her perspective as an outsider. Dr. Norval returns to New England from a trip west carrying more than luggage. While in an Indian camp, Norval rescued a ten-year-old girl, whose mother was a kidnapped Mexican woman desperate to return Lola to the girl's father. Lola is scorned both by the local gentry, who believe she is either black or Indian, and by the doctor's wife?at least until Dr. Norval reveals that she was accompanied by a lot of gold. When word of her wealth gets out, Lola is treated like a lady as the townspeople begin complex plans to get close to her and her money. The details are exquisite. Burton excels at picking names for these supposedly good Christians, from Mrs. Cackle to the Reverends Hackwell and Hammerhard. In short chapters with titles like "Potations, Plotting and Propriety," Burton details the intricate mess of love and proposals?both honest and contrived. A thorough introduction traces specific themes like the novel's precocious portrayal of women entering the public sphere, and footnotes lend helpful historical background. In the end it is the story that counts, though, and this is a fully entertaining read that stands on its own against much of today's fiction.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This 1872 title was the author's first novel. Set in the post-Civil War United States, the story deals with the prejudice faced by a young Mexican girl rescued from Indian captivity who comes to live with a New England family.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
The insights into class and race in this clever satire set during and after the Civil War give it a thoroughly contemporary feel ... A fully entertaining read that stands on its own against much of today's fiction. --Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

This originally appeared in 1872: its reissue will introduce new audiences to a historical romance depicting antebellum and Civil War society from the viewpoint of a Mexican girl delivered from Indian captivity who comes to live with a New England family. Many cultural insights evolve. -- Midwest Book Review

This originally appeared in 1872: its reissue will introduce new audiences to a historical romance depicting antebellum and Civil War society from the viewpoint of a Mexican girl delivered from Indian captivity who comes to live with a New England family. Many cultural insights evolve. --Midwest Book Review

Customer Reviews

An amusing and disturbing novel of the Civil War era.
Who Would Have Thought It?, a novel by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton has as its kernel the Cinderella story. The Cinderella is Lola Medina, daughter of a prominent Spanish-Mexican family, whose mother had been abducted by Indians shortly before she gave birth. Before dying, the mother handed her daughter over to the care of Dr. James Norval, and appointed him trustee over a fortune that had come into her possession. Dr. Norval would be the kind stepfather in the tale, while the evil stepmother is his wife Jemima Norval, hypocritical upholder of Puritan morality. As Lola's skin had been dyed by the Indians she bore the stigma of being of mixed blood which intensified the hostility with which she was treated by her New England guardians.

By using irony and satire, the author created a wide contrast between the merits of beautiful (but passive) Lola, with whom she identified herself, and the demerits of greedy Anglo-American social climbers. The most offensive of these are the cynical Rev. Hackwell and Mrs. Norval, the covetous stepmother. Upon receiving a false report of the death of her husband, Mrs. Norval entered into a clandestine marriage (so she believed) with the sexually appealing Hackwell. To show the inner life of these conniving people, the author used a simple analogy. Beneath their apparently unruffled services, devils of passion and greed, also called imps, clamored to be released.

The novel is set during the Civil War and ends with a glance at matters during the Reconstruction. The two heroes Issac Sprig and Julian Norval, brother and son respectively of Mrs. Norval, fight in the Union cause. Issac was confined to a Confederate prison from which he was released through the intercession of a kindly Confederate office. Julian was wounded at the battles of Bull Run and Chancellorsville, was falsely accused of treason, and received a pardon and promotion after defending himself before President Lincoln. Before joining the Union cause, Isaac had learned of the existence of a Mexican heiress, who had escaped from Indians, but did not know that this person was Lola. Isaac acted the role of the fairy godmother in the story and, as such, his interferences defy reality. Julian, the prince in the story, was in love with Lola but could not marry her until she reached legal age.

Ruiz de Burton had read many works, in both English and Spanish. Allusions and borrowings from them occur in the novel . . . Greek mythology, Roman history, Shakespeare, Thackeray and Cervantes are conspicuous. Partial to her Mexican origin, she was critical of the provincialism of upper class people on the East Coast. Her political sentiments were based on reactions of the moment rather than on learned perceptions. She disliked republicanism (both as an institutional practice and as a political party) and this dislike encompassed Mexico as well as the United States; she thought women could do a better job in managing public affairs than men; regarded Manifest Destiny as a ruse fostered by the United States to steal land from other nations, had little sympathy for subject races in the United States or Mexico; be these Negro or Indian; ignored the plight of lower class (and fellow Catholic) Irish immigrants; and admired President Grant, who did not want to exploit people in the defeated South;, and in one of the best parts of the novel, believed the wounded and imprisoned on both sides in the War, should be treated humanely.

Almost on the same level with the scorn with which she regarded the religious double-dealing of Hackwell and Hammerhard was her dislike of the chicanery of northern politicians, whom she personified in the Cackle clan. This bunch of rapscallions was motivated by self-gain. Like the prosperous proponents of religious sobriety (which they mocked in private), they pretended to be promoters of public rather than private good.

Such were the good and bad polarities with which Ruiz de Burton structured her novel. She had fun exposing fraud, but, nonetheless, she found one senator on the northern side who was not on the take and treated President Lincoln gingerly, blaming the faults of his administration on hangers-on or on a system that kept people away from contact with their representatives.

Who Would Have Thought It? generates suspense up to its happy ending when Lola, the Mexican heiress, and Julian, the Union Colonel, are united. A like coupling took place in Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton's life when she married Colonel Henry Burton to whom she was devoted. Some of the characters are names who move in and out with negligible impact; others are mocked in detail; and others are the heroes for whom, the reader cheers as the solution of their perplexing problems seems even more uncertain. Although not a masterpiece, the novel provides a politically incorrect sidelight on social and political life during the Civil War era.

Entertaining view of Civil War, gender, and class conflicts.
Who Would Have Thought It? by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, re-released by Arte Publico Press in 1995, is an entertaining examination of the Civil War, gender and class conflicts during the 1860's in the United States. The story begins when Lola, a young Spanish girl whose mother has recently died, comes to live in New England with the Norval family. While Mrs. Norval is not interested in the young "black" girl, she is interested in the gold and precious stones that were left to the girl by her dying mother. While her husband tries to find Lola's father, Mrs Norval schemes to get rich, as do the local "ministers." Meantime, the Civil Wat complicates matters for everyone, leading all the characters through a plot of treachery, lust, and intrigue. Who Would Have Thought It? is a delightful commentary on the American social culture of the 1860's