[.ca] Six of One (ISBN 0553380370)

Rita Mae Brown at her best!:
"Six of One" is a rousing tale of two sisters told by Rita Mae Brown in her unapologetic, eccentric Southern style. She introduces us to Julia and Louise Hunsenmeir, fondly known as Juts and Wheezie, an indomitable pair of quarreling sisters born around the turn-of-the-century in Runnymede, Maryland. Spanning almost a century, we watch the madcap life of Juts and Wheezie take them from small tots following their mother around in the local rich lesbian's Georgian mansion to the birth of their own children and the mayhem that follows, to Juts and Wheezie as old cronies, still tangling in their 80's. The ensemble cast features Cora, their strong and caring single mother, housekeeper of Celeste; the formidable Celeste Chalfonte, a charming lesbian without apology, and her lover, the elegantly beautiful Ramelle Bowman; Fairy Thatcher and Fannie Jump Creighton, ever-scheming schoolchums of Celeste; and in later chapters, Chessie and Pearlie, long-suffering husbands of Juts and Wheezie. These eccentric characters embody all the character flaws and quirks one would expect from a Rita Mae Brown novel depicting Southern characters, and is done as only she can. Simply put, "Six of One" is a hoot! You'll laugh, cry, and laugh again at the shenanigans of this Runnymede bunch! Don't miss it

Reality shown hanging, in all it's twisting honesty:
Rita Mae Brown has written a modern classic about the vagaries of life itself and the interaction of various people throughout life and from a variety of perspectives. It is easy to love the characters in this book, mainly because they are presented as well rounded and complete people, but also because we see in them members of our own lives. I read constantly and from all genres of writing, without any doubt this is my favorite book of the thousands I have read. I first read "Six of One" twenty years ago and am right now waiting for my fifth copy from the bookstore. I wore the pages out of the others amid much laughter and tears.

One of my 2 favorite all time reads...:
I read this when I was very young, not long after reading the gripping but totally depressing Well of Loneliness. Six of One was the first lesbian title I read that made me laugh and feel hopeful. What a Joy!!

LOL Funny!:
I'll tell you how good I found this book: I've read it so many times, it's falling apart. I'm about to get a new copy. This book is laugh-out-loud-til-you-cry funny!

A hilarious family saga on the Mason Dixon Line:
As the town of Runneymede is divided by the Mason Dixon Line, so is the family that Rita Mae Brown chronicles through several generations in this, one of her best loved and most popular books. Nobody writes internal family bitchy dialogue better than RMB, and she's off and running at top speed in Six of One. Love and war are nothing when it comes to sibling rivalry in a small town. Cora is the mother of this contentious clan of spirited, cranky, opinionated women. Spanning years from the early 1900s to the 1980s, the book alternates between past tense for the old years and present tense (told in the POV of Nickel, the bisexual daughter of Juts, one of the feuding sisters) for the more modern years. Wonderful, nearly epic, and very very funny.