Avec Schmaltz

the long version

"There are all sorts of surpising complexities in the failed marriage of Kit, the WASP flame-haired rich girl, and Manny, the wry, wise-cracking Jewish TV composer, which has produced two precocious, sassy children and a situation in which the ex-wife and the ex-husband can't seem to live with each other or without each other. Avec schmalz (a phrase European musicians would ironically use to instruct violinists how to emotionally heat-up their romantic string passages) is about this devoted divorced couple, their new partners, and their glib offspring at holiday time"--Back cover.