The Mod Couple Continued from preceding page being an artist and living a conventional life. "You have the creative drive that keeps you a little on the edge. Yet you see the value in the traditional religion and you see people who have no beliefs, no faith — you don't want the kind of life they're leading." three to six months of outlining and plot- ting. "After I wrote the first book," he remembers, "I said to myself, 'This writing is a great gig.' I love being home, I love the freedom of it." And he adds slyly, "It's much better than honest labor." Indoors, the Kellerman house manages to feel both elegant and lived-in, with orien- tal rugs, stained glass windows, tromp d'oeil paintings by Jonathan on the wall and comfortable old sofas. Two shelves display at waist height multiple copies of Kellerman novels, one shelf for hardbound, the other for paperback editions, like a bookstore. oday there is a lot of activity going on at the Kellermans, most of it unwanted. A lengthy remodeling, which has added on a two-level bedroom that will double as a writing studio for Faye, is not quite fin- ished. Workmen hammer, haul, call to one another, burst in with questions. The house alarm shrills as an electrician checks the circuits. The phone rings. Shut into a back room, the family dogs, two Papillons, res- pond with a frenzy of barking every time someone goes in or out of the house. Jonathan and Faye, sitting together on the living room couch, manage to rise above their irritation at the commotion. "It's not a mellow home anyway," says Jonathan. "There's always an intense amount of activity going on." There must be. Jonathan is an accom- plished amateur painter and guitarist, and Faye is a bass player, fencer and guitar- maker. A drum set, belonging to their oldest child, 10-year old Jesse, is per- manently set up in the living room, waiting. The family often plays music together. Jesse and his sister Rachel, 7, are at their Orthodox day school this morning. Jesse in particular, says his father, is a precocious student and voracious reader. • Does Jonathan allow his son to read his novels, with their violence and strong sexual imag- ery? "Jesse is free to read whatever he wants," the author states flatly. "We don't censor our children. We have a home full of books and ideas and they're free to choose what they want. But," he adds, "kids aren't interested in my books. Jesse picks my novels up sometimes and says, `Please don't get insulted, Dad, but they're kind of boring.' " Was Faye jealous of her husband's sud- den and extraordinary success? "Maybe initially," she responds thoughtfully. "But the feeling was quelled by having seen him struggle for so many years — and then the first thing I write gets published. Maybe he should be jealous of me. I love Jon's writing," she continues. "If there's jealousy, it's when I read his work and say, `Boy, this is beautiful.' " The Kellermans are committed to Ortho- dox Judaism and engaged in Jewish com- 90 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1988 Photo By Judith Ma rgolis T manage the split between religious and secular, the Kellermans recently bought a house on the beach in Malibu, a wealthy community northwest of Los An- geles. "We spend two weekends a month out there to keep ourselves sane," Jonathan says wryly, "and two weekends a month in town to keep the kids Jewish." While her parents talk, the youngest Kellerman, liana, 3, who has her mother's naturally curly hair albeit in a lighter shade, wanders in and climbs over Jonathan to claim Faye's lap. "Because Jon is home now," says Faye, spooning coffee yogurt into her daughter, "he gets treated by the kids with the contempt usually re- served for mothers." Jonathan, laughing, doesn't seem to mind one bit. "Rachel," he recounts, "once told me, 'Daddy, you used to be a doctor and come home late — now you're home and I can bug you.' " The Kellermans married young — she was 19, a junior in college, he was 22. Jonathan calls it "almost love at first sight." "We have a great relationship," he boasts. "It's true love, with a lot of passion after 15 years of marriage." In order to assure themselves of private time together, the Kellermans have break- fast or lunch out every day, without their kids. "We really like each other," explains Faye "We're happy together. We both work real hard and we have a good life." Although both have written novels about Jewish life, neither has yet managed to articulate a vision of the special cir- cumstance of living as Jews in the modern world. L.A. Times book reviewer Jonathan Kirsch, for example, found Faye's Sacred and Profane "curiously inarticulate" about Judaism and its author "unwilling to con- front" the issue of intermarriage, which is integral to the novel. Similarly, though Jonathan's The Butch- er's Theater, an exciting and expansive book of more than 600 pages, is filled with the texture of life in Israel and with a plethora of details about the history and culture of both Arabs and Jews, it ends up being mainly about its intricate storyline and rarely about being Jewish. This is a hazard of the mystery genre, perhaps. But the Kellermans are so well situated to accomplish something special in the Jewish novel, that their fans must be forgiven the hope that -they will ulti- mately accomplish the synthesis. In the meantime, Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, each turning out a successful novel a year, are working hard and having fun. T II "I love Judaism. I believe in God. I consider myself an Orthodox Jew; says Jonathan, "but I'm a writer I'm on the outside looking in." munal life. When Jonathan was to receive his "Edgar" in a Friday night award ceremony, for example, he made Shabbat with Faye in their hotel room, walked to the ceremony and refused to use the micro- phone for his acceptance remarks. "He shouted instead," Faye recalls. More recently, Jonathan joined several Orthodox rabbis in a meeting with editors of the Los Angeles Times to protest "biased" coverage of the Palestinian upris- ing. Several weeks later, he participated in a second private meeting with Paul Con- rad, whose anti-Israel political cartoons in the Los Angeles Times have outraged virtually all segments of the local Jewish community. "I told Conrad, 'I think your cartoons, are classic Catholic anti-Semi- tism,' " Jonathan reports, adding with some satisfaction, "I don't pull my punches." But he speaks at the same time of "alienation" from the religious communi- ty. "I'm part of it, but I'm not part of it. I love Judaism, I believe in God, I consider myself an Orthodox Jew, but I'm a writer — I'm on the outside looking in. Any orthodox religious group — Christian, Muslim, Jewish — is by its nature conser- vative and bourgeois. I'm the left wing of Orthodoxy — I don't wear a yarmulke all the time. I'm more a free-thinker, I guess. If I didn't have children, I wouldn't live here. I don't personally feel I need the com- munity, but for my children it's essential." Faye also expresses the tension between David Margolis writes from Los Angeles.