A happy relationship between parents and grown children takes two things, author and editor Jane Isay says: love and lack of ego.
Oh, and one more thing: effort.

"You have to make it work," she added.

That also sounds pretty much like her formula for writing her first book, Walking on Eggshells: Navigating the Delicate Relationship Between Adult Children and Their Parents.

The book, published this past March, has garnered high praise. Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo wrote that Isay drew from her own intimate experiences and those of friends and associates "to show us how to create, preserve, or restore the unique treasure that is family love."

Isay will speak Sunday, Nov. 11, at 1 p.m., at the opening event of the Annual Jewish Book Festival of the Jewish Community Center of Central New Jersey.

Isay, who lives with her husband in New York City, started out a whole lot more confident than most new authors. Aside from having brought up two sons of her own, her first publishing job was helping experts in psychiatry, psychology, and child development distill their findings for a general audience. From there she went on to work with people like Alice Miller (The Drama of the Gifted Child), Mary Pipher (Reviving Ophelia), Rachel Simmons (Odd Girl Out), and Patricia O'Conner (Woe is I).

In 2004, Isay resigned her position as editor-in-chief at Harcourt Trade Books and set out to test her own writing advice. She chose the topic that had proved complicated in her own life — the potential minefield between the generations. Just as she had advised her authors to do, she sought out regular people who would discuss their experiences with openness and honesty.

Speaking by phone during a recent trip to California, Isay's tone was brisk and positive — and that is just the attitude she takes when talking about relationships: Love conquers all, she said — if you keep it paramount. That caring can come through in small gestures, like a phone call for no special reason. And from there can come healing of the rifts wrought as children become adults.

Isay said her most delicate challenge as an editor came when one of her sons introduced her to the young woman he was in love with, and asked her to give his girlfriend some tips on how to improve the book she was writing (later a National Book Award nominee). "Now, that took tact," Isay declared.

When it came to writing her own book, that same woman, now her daughter-in-law, took Isay shopping to stock up on supplies: notebooks and pens and a sheet of poster board, on which she instructed her mother-in-law to outline each chapter. From there, she just took off.

"I had the structure in my brain," Isay said. "And I knew how to do research. I love listening to people. It was hard work, but it was pure joy."

Two of her main guides were authors Pifer and Simmons. "They gave me appropriately tough love, and it was tremendously helpful," she said. "But when I'd say to one of them, ‘You're so brilliant!' there'd be a pause, and then they'd say to me, ‘That's what you told me to do.'"

Given how much Isay drew on her own life, it was only fitting that her sons, David, an award-winning radio documentarian, and Josh, a political consultant, also had their say about what she was writing. As an epilogue to the book, she wrote about a road trip the whole family took together. She felt the writing was really good — the best she had done — but she wanted to be sure her sons were comfortable with it.

"I told them that there were a hundred different ways I could end the book, and if they had one single hesitation, I would drop it," she said. "They both loved it — except for one adjective David didn't like that my editor also wanted me to take out. I think it was something like ‘gangly.'"

When Isay talks about her boys, you can hear just why her book has such an optimistic, light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel tone. Though the family went through some rough times, love triumphed. She said that at the party to celebrate the publication of the book, both her sons stood up to speak.

"Hi, I'm Dave — page 220," the one said.

Josh said, "We promise you, Mom, that you don't ever have to walk on eggshells with us."