Framed by two potted plants on the Carnegie Music Hall stage last night, Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon offered an unusually intimate portrait of a marriage.

Chabon, despite a stubbly beard, is still boyishly sincere and eager to please at 43, his Pittsburgh "phase" well behind him. He's one of the country's establishment novelists now with a Pulitzer Prize on his mantle for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay."

Waldman, who said she vowed to let her husband be the writer in the family at their wedding, is the author of nine novels, her latest, "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits" now in the process of becoming a Hollywood film starring Jennifer Lopez. A former criminal lawyer, she's developed a public personality that could best be called assertive.

If American literature had power couples, they are in the first rank. Their domestic dialogue at the Heinz Lectures was not so much about writing as it was their emotional commitment to each other and the way that bond influences their work.

Along with the plants, the framework featured the pair asking each other questions they had "secretly prepared" beforehand. This approach worked well to accentuate both the distinct character of each and their closeness, especially as they finished each other's sentences.

Questions like "Why don't you ever put anything away" to "How do you explain what boring lives we lead" were expected, but when Chabon dealt with his wife's most notorious piece of writing, the result was unexpectedly moving.

Waldman's essay last year in a Sunday newspaper asserted that Chabon, rather than their four children, was the center of her universe, a stand that might have caused fewer ripples had she more subtlely stated her case. She gave the impression that in a life-and-death situation, her hubby would come first. The essay even earned her an appearance on Oprah Winfrey's couch.

The exchange was touched off by Chabon's question, "After exposing your family and personal life to everybody, how do you think that made your husband feel?"

What Waldman meant, said an emotionally affected husband, was that "our marriage was the foundation of everything that followed" -- their children, their family life and their devotion to each other and each other's work.

Waldman herself admitted to being "verklempt" after Chabon's strong showing of support.

There were a handful of writing anecdotes: The two now share what was originally Chabon's studio; he can't put Thomas Pynchon's "Against The Day" down; when one or the other has hit a wall in their writing, they take "plot walks" around their Berkeley, Calif., neighborhood together to hash things out.

Chabon was able to discuss his forthcoming novel, "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" as well as a serialized novel now appearing in the New York Times that he originally called "Jews With Swords."

"I've reached the point in my career where I'm feeling increasingly free to write what I damn well please," he announced, in his own version of assertiveness.

Back to Oprah. Last night's personal and emotionally moving scenes from the Chabon-Waldman marriage could have turned into confessional TV if it weren't for the sincerity, good humor and open affection of the couple.