Two writers explored the slightly risque, possibly offensive, and definitely amusing territory of gender differences at a joint appearance Nov. 13 at the annual Jewish Book Festival at the JCC of Central New Jersey in Scotch Plains.

Novelist Jonathan Tropper and nonfiction writer Stephen Fried were the headliners of a event marketed toward women and featuring tables of chocolate and wine.

Tropper, whose latest novel is How To Talk to a Widower, drew a gasp when he admitted the book was inspired by his own fantasizing about his wife dying in a plane crash ("assuming she would, because I'm Jewish and a writer") and what that would do for his dating prospects. "That's how men's minds work," he said with a shrug.

But the gasps turned to laughs when he read a scene involving a toddler falling off a table and bumping his head, as the main character struggles to help the kid's overwhelmed (and sexy) mother. "Women find it funny when a little kid falls off a table?" Tropper asked, deadpan, while audience members explained that as wives and mothers, they could empathize with the feeling of escalating crisis.

Those sorts of male-female misunderstandings form the basis of Fried's book, a collection of the essays he has been writing for Ladies' Home Journal. Fried said he hoped the book — Husbandry: Sex, Love & Dirty Laundry — Inside the Minds of Married Men — would "help wives laugh at what men do, and laugh with them."

Fried said his inspiration was his own marriage and the stories he hears from guys from his long-running basketball game. The players shmooze about their love-hate relationship with their hair, about the death of fathers, and about being good in bed (referring to snoring, not to sex), and how — try as they might — they simply don't care about things like dirty dishes and clothes on the floor.

Fried said he has a vital asset in his bid to bridge the gender gap: his wife, novelist Diane Ayres. Throughout their 20-year marriage, she has been his sounding board and editor, he said, helping him frame his topics clearly. She has also been remarkably relaxed about his making public what goes on between them.

"The one thing she wouldn't let me mention was her nickname," he said — and again loyally declined to reveal it.

At their home in Philadelphia, the two work in their respective studies on separate floors, meeting for discussion and editing — about his work, though not about hers. "You don't tell an artist what her brush strokes should look like," he said.

As for Tropper, he lives in Westchester County, NY, with his wife, Elizabeth, a nursery school teacher now at home with their three children. He said she understands how his imagination works, even if it sometimes means she plays a corpse.

All four of Tropper's books have been optioned for movies, with top directors lined up and hot actors like Brad Pitt and Toby Maguire keen to star in them.

Though he attributed his success more to Hollywood script-buyers being "like sheep" rather than any special talent of his own, he did acknowledge that his stories have broad appeal. "They say that most book buyers are women, but I get about five e-mails a day from readers, and they come from as many men as women," he said. "I think my books work just as well for both."

Be that as it may, he and Fried agreed, most of the people turning out for their talks on the promotional circuit have been women, including 19 of the 20 audience members at the JCC event. This was the first time the two of them had ever met, but they clicked so easily, it was clear they have been on parallel paths.