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Relationship

Married

Hometown

New York City, NY

Places I've been

A LITTLE BACKGROUND: I grew up in New York City, the daughter of a columnist for the New York Post and a psychiatrist. After college, I married and moved to New Haven, and the Yale University Press, creating their lists in psychiatry, psychology, and child development. In 1979 I moved to Basic Books, and for the next 25 years was an editor and publishing executive at New York publishing houses. My interest in psychology led me to publish Alice Miller (The Drama of the Gifted Child), Mary Pipher (Reviving Ophelia) Antonio Damasio (Descartes’ Error), and Rachel Simmons (Odd Girl Out). I also edited outstanding nonfiction including Praying for Sheetrock, by Melissa Fay Greene, Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissinger, and Woe is I, by Patricia O’Conner.

More about me

I am happy to announce that the paperback edition of my book, WALKING ON EGGSHELLS: Navigating the Delicate Relationship Between Adult Children and Parents is now available. I’m about to get back on the road for my book, and I look forward to sharing what parents and grown children are telling me about their joys and sorrows. I’ll post a blog after each trip on my Eons blog and I hope to start a conversation with you about this subject, which is so dear to many boomers’ hearts.

To see where I’ll be on tour, please visit my website at www.janeisay.com, and click on the "News & Reviews" section.

This book started for me, when my older son asked me to accompany him to his therapist. I of course agreed, although I was filled with dread. What I learned in two tearful (I was crying) sessions was how much he missed me, and loved me. It was a wake-up call to a mother who had come to believe that a certain distance from her grown children was to be expected.

As a book editor with 40 years of experience, I tried to get some of my psychologist authors to write the book about our relationships with adult children, but they all refused. So, I quit my job as editor in chief at Harcourt Trade books and set out on the adventure of researching, writing, and then promoting my book, WALKING ON EGGSHELLS: Navigating the Delicate Relationship between Adult Children and Parents. I traveled across the country, interviewing nearly 70 people, parents and adult children, and it was a blast. The hardcover edition was quite a success, garnering good reviews and getting me large audiences. I learned a lot from the response of reviewers and audiences.

I found that most parents of adult children ponder their new relationship, and many worry. Why don’t they listen to my advice? How can I get closer? The step-children are hostile—what should I do? What do I do when they ask for money? How can I improve the relationship with my daughter-in-law so I can see the grandchildren? And, universally, Why don’t they return my phone calls?

When this is finished, I’ll get back to working on my next book, which is about the relationships between and among siblings in adulthood. It’s called UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Staying Close to your Adult Siblings. Let me know if you have thoughts on that subject, too.

To read an excerpt from WALKING ON EGGSHELLS, please visit: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780767920858&view=excerpt

Activities

water aerobics, walking in Central Park, tutoring, liberal politics, conversation

Favorite Charities

StoryCorps, Mazon, God’s Love We Deliver

Favorite Music

Mozart, Bach, Beatles, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger

Favorite TV Shows

Brothers and Sisters, In Treatment, Boston Legal

Favorite Movies

Juno

Favorite Books

mysteries written by women, books about race in America

Favorite People

My family

Favorite Places

New York, City, Nebraska, the Serengeti

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