Faye Moskowitz weaves her tales of interconnected Jewish families into a series of connected stories. The portraits and the people are not always admirable, certainly not Talmudic, but through the eye and the ears of this writer, they all give us lessons in the sweetness and pain of life as a second-generation Jew in America. Like her other books, this is, an achingly painful and funny collection about growing up female, Jewish, and smart.