Her adoptive mother, Juts (Julia Ellen), and aunt Wheezie (Louise) Hunsenmeir have been quibbling and making up since they were small girls in 1908, the earliest part of the story.

Most of the characters are female, each with her own over-the-top propensities: Celeste Chalfonte murders the local weapons tycoon for principle, and shares her lover Ramelle with her brother.

Cora, Celeste's servant and friend, illiterate, simple and hardworking, is the mother of the bickering Hunsenmeir sisters.

Fannie Jump Creighton turns her aristocratic home into a speakeasy during prohibition, to survive the Great Depression.

[3] The Kirkus review of Six of One states: "Though the march through time gets a little forced at times, Brown is always ready to bring us back to Runnymeade and its pranks... At her winning, fondest best, Brown has some of the same effervescent yet secure trust in her local characters that Eudora Welty feels for hers.