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Ayelet Waldman is outgoing, gregarious, the type of person who can light up any conversation with her engaging wit and personality.

Her husband is more reserved, perhaps a bit shy, quiet but well-spoken, his words carefully measured.

A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, he has brought his wife and young daughter to one of his favorite campus hangouts, the Original Hot Dog Shop in Oakland.

"This is so good," Waldman says, sampling one of the 'O's' legendary french fries.

He smiles, pleased. This is his wife's first trip to Pittsburgh, and this spot was specially chosen.

How could she not like it? At this point in his life, there seems to be little that Michael Chabon can do wrong.

"Amazing" fortune

"I am so lucky," Chabon says amid the clatter and din of the O at lunchtime. "I can't believe it. … I just keep saying I can't believe I get to do this. It's not right."

He is referring to all of the good fortune that has come his way, specifically the recent phone call he received from director Sam Raimi, who requested that Chabon rewrite the script for "The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man," the sequel to this summer's blockbuster "Spider-Man."

If Raimi had not called, Chabon's life still would be fabulous. Now 39, he has just published a new book, "Summerland," a children's novel. And last year, his novel about a pair of World War II-era comic book writers, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," won a Pulitzer Prize.

But all of these things pale in comparison to the relationship he has with Waldman, 37, and his three children, Ida-Rose, almost 2; who seems to enjoy the ketchup as much as the greasy fries at the O; and Sophie, 8, and Zack, 5, back home in Berkeley, Calif. Waldman is pregnant with the couple's fourth child.

"I really depend on Ayelet, when I finish a draft or some piece of writing that I think is ready to go to the next stage, whatever that would be, a lot," Chabon says. "There are always a lot of things I'm not sure of, things that are missing that I don't realize are missing, things that are much too much of, I don't realize there are much too much of.

"Ayelet is a really good reader. She's really perceptive, and she also has a really strong sense of the way story and characters are linked."

Waldman, however, wasn't always certain her husband was on the right track. "Summerland" is a about a magical, strange world of children and baseball-playing fairies.

"I was like, OK," she says. "Well, that's going to do it. Baseball-playing fairies? I can always go back to practicing law."

Then, "Kavalier & Clay" came out and earned Chabon the type of acclaim reserved for the literary elite. The Pulitzer followed, and Waldman says it proves his instincts are correct.

"Michael doesn't pay any attention to what people think he should be writing, or what people expect writers to write," Waldman says.

But who is this woman who has the ear, and the heart, of one of America's finest writers?

From law to fiction

Waldman's first career was as a public defender in Los Angeles. The New Jersey native and graduate of Harvard Law School's first novel, "Nursery Crimes," was published in 2000.

"I was a criminal defense lawyer, so I did a lot of creative writing when I tried to convince the judge my client should go free," she says with a laugh. "But 'Nursery Crimes' was the first (work). I'd never written a short story, never written a poem, never written anything."

Waldman hasn't abandoned her legal training, teaching an upper-level course on drug policy at the University of California, Berkeley. She also writes briefs for public health organizations pertaining to Supreme Court cases that address women and drug policies.

Writing fiction, however, is her central concern. Waldman already has finished her next "Mommy-Track" mystery, and she's also penned another novel she says is an attempt at more serious fiction.

Yet, despite her husband's vaunted pedigree — from literary wunderkind when "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" was published in 1988, to Pulitzer Prize last year — their literary relationship, like their marriage, is one of equality.

"I think his writing has got better," she says. "Hasn't it?"

"Definitely," Chabon says.

"Particularly Michael's women characters," Waldman says. "They're more nuanced now because of my influence. I'll take credit for that."

Waldman laughs again, and her husband smiles. It is a dream-come-true existence, from the "Spider-Man" deal — Chabon is an avid comic book enthusiast — to the Pulitzer Prize to "Summerland," to a loving family and marriage of nine years.

"We knock on wood a lot," Chabon says.

"We spend a lot of time saying kaynahora," Waldman adds, referring to a Yiddish term that means to avoid the evil eye.

One can't help but think and hope that eye will always be blind.

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