This novel is extremely tedious to read. I find its characters uninteresting and lacking in depth, the story plods along at a maddeningly slow tempo, and the writing style is mundane. The only positive note that I can make about Who Would Have Thought It? thus far is that it does well in revealing the complex and nonsensical notions that people of that era held about race. As the story progresses, we observe what the racial hierarchy looked like at this time, how people perceived the race of others and themselves, and how different races corresponded to different opportunities in life.

At first, it does not seem that the white family can differentiate between people of African, Hispanic, or Native American descent, as they all marvel at how black Lola is and make speculations about her ancestry (17). It is clear that they are profoundly racist, associating Lola with a zoological specimen and contagious disease. It is also clear that they, especially the imperious Mrs. Norval, are hypocrites when it comes to their racial prejudices. Despite her horror that her husband has taken in a “black” child, Mrs. Norval is considered to be “a great abolitionist” by others (46).

The novel portrays a societal fixation with whiteness and shows how people needed to assert their whiteness in order to gain access to the privileges enjoyed by that identification. The authour initially tells us that “Lola was decidedly too black and too young for Julian Norval to take a fancy to her,” which implies that a lesser degree of “blackness” would be preferable to him (51). Later we find out that Julian does love Lola and that her skin only appeared to be black because it was “stained by the Indians” who had captured her (100). At this point Julian asserts the importance of her being “of pure Spanish descent” (100). For Lola, the whiteness that she had temporarily lost and her full European heritage are important assets for fitting into upper class New England. This is a useful case for reflecting upon the ways that place of origin, skin colour, and lineage interact in a highly prejudiced society.