>> next, ben mezrich tells the story of pat roberts, a fellow at nasa's johnson space center who stole moon rock samples from all six of the apollo missions and tried to sell them on the internet. u..

>> he's the author of 12 books. though he said no one read his first six, you know him i'm sure for the book "bringing down the house" which was made into a movie with kevin spacey, called "21." i'm sure you know him from the "accidental billionaires" which was made into "social network." and now "sex on the moon" which is fantastic and it's centered here in texas. so many places here i think will be so particular to many of you. so please welcome to dallas and welcome to the stage, ben mezrich.

[applause] [applause] >> so am i wrong that when i heard that the title of the book was session -- was "sex on the moon" i thought it was a drink that college kids had in padre. >> it does sound like a drink. my wife came up with the title. i was not the dirty mind. the main character did spread moon rocks on the bed and have sex. i'm afraid it's getting caught in a spam filter. >> getting the e-mails. >> as i was reading it, i was thinking and processing the title. as you say, you get to a moment later it becomes evident to why the book is called that. quick because i'm guessing that many people have not had the chance to read it. this was the delicate thing

where you don't want to give away what happens. >> right. i tend to give away too much. >> tell us about thad and what he does. he's the most complex individual that you've written about in any of your books. take that, mark zuckerberg. >> yeah. >> tell us about him and what attracted you to tell his story. >> thad roberts came from a hard background. a fundamentalist mormon family. he was kicked out of his house when he was 18 for admitted to premarital sex. then he decided he wanted to be an astronaut. he changed his life, he learned how to fly airplanes, scuba dive, he spoke five languaging, then he got into nasa co-op program for college kids. but it's a feeder to the

program. he was achieving the dream. he was a stand out, big star, he became the social leader of the co-op and interns. then he fell in love with a young intern. we've all done something stupid out of love. thad roberts stole a 600 pound safe full of moon rocks, as i said, spread them on the bed, had sex with his girlfriend, and tried to sell them on the internet to a belgium dealer, who's name was axel zimmerman. he's never been out antwerp. his hobby a wooden bird on a hundred foot pole and all of the men stand around it and shoots

at it. he sees this add, i have moon rocks and collects rocks. he e-mailed the fbi in tampa. it became the big sting operation, and thad roberts was taken down. i always give it away. but you know he got arrested. right. right. >> don't cross that line. [laughter] >> you obviously have come off of enormous success with not only the book, but also the fact they are then converted to movies which helped in terms of that notoriety. >> they always change the title. it's really annoying. "sex on the moon" is the first one they have to keep. >> you are locked in on that one. certainly, you had said you were working on this at the time the social network was being filmed. there was an over lap. i've always thought in the way that actor and actresses are only as good as the roles they choose, writers are only as good as the stories they pick. what was it, all of that you

just explained notwithstanding, of all of the stories that you could have told, what was it that attracted you to this particular topic. >> for me, the stories come to me. i don't look for them. every since "bringing down the house" i get 30 phone calls a week. every college kid that does something crazy. i've always wanted to write about nasa. it's amazing. when you think of nasa, you think of the '60s, tom hanks in a silver capsule. this let me get inside nasa today. thad roberts out of the blue contacted me, he had just gotten out of prison, he was on probation. it was weird, i never meant someone who had spent a decade in prison. i arraigned to meet him in the hotel lobby. he was the nicest, charismatic, smart guy that did something stupid. >> the nicest fella you had met. >> i was amazed. no one had written.

one article in the "l.a. times "but i had not seen anything about it. i wouldn't believe it. the first thing i did was i filed a freedom of information act with the fbi to get the fbi file. which is thousands of pages. i mean i even got when the fbi agents took him down, they were wearing wires. i got the transcript. i first he says, if you are wearing a wire, i'm screwed. that's on tape. so it was wild. it was about a year long interviewing everybody i could. >> i see. so there's one section in the book which i think is just great too, where there's the correspondence between thad who's going by the name roy robinson. >> right. it's a play of roy robertson.

immerman was excited. nasa named an asteroid after him for solving the case. everybody on the book is reprinted directly. a lot of dialogue is straight from the transcripts. i do get attacked a lot in the press for my style. which is a very kind of dramatic, cinematic way of telling a nonfiction story. the reality is that everything in here is from the files. >> sure. you brought that up. that's something that i wanted to visit with us about a little bit. certainly that came out a lot in "bringing down the house." i wanted to know if you could talk as the technique. >> my controversial technique. >> but it works. in the "new york times" review -- >> yeah, she hates me. >> she mates -- hates me.

all right. that was the hangover from that. >> it's been like this my entire career. i'm a cinematic thinking. this is the kind of stuff that i like to read. it's a form of new journalism. i get all of the information, thousands of pages of court documents, all of the fbi stuff, and i sit down and tell the story in a very visual way. there are going to be journalist who do not like it. certainly janet is one of those. i don't write for janet, i write for me and the kind of people that like the book. it's as true as anything on the list. you see a biography of cleopatra. come on, nobody knows anything about cleopatra. and you see abraham lincoln, and

obama's biography. you have to take the fact and write it in a certain way. i choose to write it in a cinematic way. for instance, i'll interview thad roberts and later mr. gordon that was there. i know there was a conversation, i know what was said, i don't know the exact word. one journalist might say they talked about moon rocks. to me it's a boring way to describe it. i know what they did, i know how talked about it, so i describe what they did. there are some journalist who love it, some don't. it'll be a controversy, in terms of certain journalist will never like it. request at -- with "the social network" and "accidental billionaires "mark zuckerberg said it's not true.

he never pointed out anything that wasn't true. he said it's not true. then he said he didn't read the book. i don't know where you go with that. i think the reality is it is a very true story. he laid the, you know, he meant to have sex on moon rocks because he wanted to be like having sex on the moon. he spread them on the bed and had sex on the moon. janet had a problem with the scene, saying he just put them under the matrices. -- mattress. that's not true. he did this on purpose. i use the facts but tell it in my style. some people like it, some don't. >> right. you are saying some journalist might not like it. what do you think? >> that's funny. i never saw myself as a journalist. i always saw myself in the entertainment business. i always stumbled into true stories. i hated nonfiction. i grew up watching bad television. i was a fan of pop culture and movies. then i met the mit kids in a bar

at a bar in boston. i was at cross roads, it's like an mit dive bar. if you can imagine an mit dive bar, it's a bunch of geeky guys -- sorry. i'm a geeky guy too. these guy had all of the money. it was all in hundred dollar bills. in boston, you never see hundred dollar bills. i don't know what it's like in dallas, you probably do see them. >> thousands of them. >> that's right. oil; right? boston it was college kids. i went over to the main guy's house. in his laundry was $250,000 in banded stacks. i thought you got to be a drug dealer. he wasn't. and the next day we flew to vegas. it was the mit blackjack team. i ended up joining the team and i said i want to write the story. that's my first true story. so i fell into nonfiction. but i wrote it like a thriller.

it wasn't like i'm going to sit down and write nonfiction in this way. i was writing fiction and i ran into a true story. that's been the way. "accidental billionaires" same thing. sitting at home, it's a harvard senior from houston. he said my best friend co-founded facebook. no one has ever heard of him. i go out for a drink. in walks eduardo, he's angry, furious, mark zuckerberg screwed him. he wanted to tell his story. it's been this weird kind of stumbling my way through. >> there's been an experience with you in terms of bringing down the house where you were part of the culture that's what brought you. i think that most -- i want to stay with this for a minute because it's interesting in terms of what readers expect when they sit down as to how it's marketed and what it's billed as. we all have of the classic notion of the willing suspension

of disbelief. your point is well taken. it is true though in bringing down the house there was large sections -- not large sections but there were scenes created to help move the story along; right? >> you know, i disagree. there was definitely climbs by people who were not on the mit blackjack team who said they didn't happen. the reality that book played close to what really happened. there's a scene, you know, i think the big scene that people talked about is when they used the clippers to change in the clips. i was told that by two members of the blackjack team that was there. maybe you can discount their story. i interviewed with a few strippers. you can discount that. you can only go so far in interviews. all journalists make choices, you know. it is what it is. i think with "accidental

billionaires" it's much more heavily vetted. obviously, there were teams of lawyers. everybody is involved. it's pretty accurate. i would say "social network" was closely to at least what the winklevoss believe what happened. those are two guys you wouldn't make up. i met them, tyler or cameron, you can't tell, you look at us and think we must be the bad guys. if there were an '80s movie, we'd be dress as skeletons chasing karate kids. then ralph called, original "karati kid. there's a lot of different sources. >> we've touched on a couple of

things. one you've talked about the cinematic version of your writing. i would to hold that. i think the audience would want to know the jump from sitting at the desk and the translation to the big screen. that is an experience in its own. let me hold on that and say that one the thing that is we've seen, particularly in the last three books is that you are drawn to a particular type of character it seems to me. young and smart and pushing the envelope of whatever it is that they are doing. is that fair? >> yeah, young, geeky, always been guys so far. that's not by choice. it's just who calls me. >> what is it about that world? >> i think i live vicariously through them. i was a geeky guy, still am. the idea that you could go from that to rock star, or mark zuckerberg alone in the room a billionaire, or mit kids living the high life in vegas. even thad roberts he went from

nothing to almost an astronaut to stealing moon rocks. >> one, it was the upbringing, and coming to houston, he was determined to reinvent himself. he wanted to be the guy that people recognized as the social leader and the person that was coming up with all of these not exactly pranks, but who could get in to the space shuttle similar simulator and push it. it does help drive the narrative in terms of building up. >> yeah, absolutely. this is a kid that needed everyone to love him. he was on cbs "sunday morning" that was what he said. i needed people to love me. there's no kind of bigger needs than that. he didn't have that love growing up. that's what he did. and, yeah, i think there is that transformation is what i like to write about. >> you were saying you met with

eduardo saturn and the winklevoss twins, not mark. >> right. >> here it's flipped. thads your main source. how was that different? where were homes were his story sounded too fantastic. were you able to check certain things? because there are some moments that kind of stretch the bounds. >> right. right. >> how do you go about vetting whether or not what he is telling you is correct or if he's spinning you a tail. >> right. with mark zuckerberg, i spent year trying to talk to him. he knew i was talking to eduardo, i spent a year. he was nice. in the end, no, no, no. thad wanted to tell his story. i got hundreds of hours of him on tape. in the beginning, he wasn't telling me the truth. it was the matter of confronting him and saying that's not what happened according to the fbi

and according to the court transcript and according to the other people that were there. then he would back off and wait and say okay this is what really happened. there is that aspect of it. i guess if i'm a journalist, that's the main form of my journalism is seeing where people are lying to me. and it was -- but, you know, in the end he was very open and honest. i said listen, here's the deal, especially with my books they will be picked away by people like janet, you need to tell the truth. >> right. >> and so he did. in the end, he did. and he was very open and honest with me. you know what, there is the thing where i did start to like him a lot. as a writer, that's where things get tricky. if someone is extremely likable. what he did was pretty bad. my dad who is an engineer and scientist said i hate this guy. this guy stole our national treasure. men gave their lives to get, you know, moon rocks and he stole it for, you know, petty seasons.

there is that. when you look at it objectively, yeah, that's horrible. but at the same time, you are sitting with the kid, he's tearing up, he screwed up his life because he thought it would be cool. it's hard not to feel bad and not start to like him. anybody that met thad roberts would love him. he's a lovable guy that did a bad thing. for the author, that maybe my main problem is i get close to my subjects, because i want to be a part of it. so, yeah, i mean i guess there is that. >> i think he does some across very sympathetic. you know where this is headed, as he is coming through the other and establishing himself at nasa, you see he's talented, working hard, and as you said with cbs, in the "sunday morning" he doesn't know why he

did now that he looks back on it. that's the puzzling aspect. i think you do get the sense that part of his personality that made him great also led him to derail and go down the other path. >> absolutely. this was a kid who could do anything and then decided to do this. so, you know, -- yeah, yeah. >> all right. you talked about writing in a cinematic way. you refer to that a couple of times already in our conversation. tell me when you are sitting down to write these books, are you already thinking of what may happen in the movies? >> yeah. >> you are already thinking that? >> yeah, i'm 100% that way. it started with my very first book, which none of you read, called threshold in 1996. i've always been a cinematic writer. and then with "bringing down the house" when it became a movie, kevin spacey became my first reader. kevin and dana, his business

partner, and they are like gods in the industry. i know when i sit down, this could be a movie. i'm not picturing justin timberlake running around nasa. not that i don't think he would be great, he would. i'm picturing a visual setting in that way. baud because i think there's a real synergy. books become movies more and more frequently, i feel. at least i've been fortunate in that respect. this one we sold to the same people who are making the "social network" and spacey and dana and deluca. it's going to be a movie. i do think that way. movies are fun. when i sit down in my cold, dark room in boston for three months of solid loneliness, you have to be picturing the big screen. >> would you rather read a book

or watch a movie? >> read a book. i'm sad in a way that i like the kindle. it is a great device. because books are so wonderful. i read all the time. and i watch a lot of tv, and a watch a lot of movies and kind of consume all forms of entertainment. but books are great. i grew up with books, and i wish they could last forever. >> right. okay. the hollywood aspect has been very good to you. i think you had said you went to the golden globes as kevin spacey's plus one. >> yes, it was amazing and it was a weird experience. you know, normally someone like me would not be sitting somewhere near celebrities because i write books. in hollywood that means you are down here. my table was kevin and nicole kidman and keith urban and megan fox and brian austin greene and scarlet johansen, and then right behind me was bruce willis. it's crazy. i had to go to the bathroom.

you only get like three minutes breaks. i run to the bathroom and run into brad and angelina jolie. whoa. you guys are good looking. and around them and get to the bathroom. but it was a wild experience. [laughter] >> i see myself as this guy from boston. i'm always kind of just wandering around the corners of these things. it was just a wild, wild, experience. >> tell us about how involved you are in the production and creative process behind the film. >> when you get a guy like sorkin, you do whatever you say. >> in writers that i've talked with or writers that i know, there's one school of thought it's mine, mine alone, and i'm going to protect it. josh grimm -- grishham is famous

for saying once it's made into a movie, it's not mine. tell us about the hotel meeting. >> well, i wasn't finished. i was handing him chapters and he was doing the screen play. once they are on et, the director god. david fincher is god, god, god, the set runs and you are just there. my involvement is, you know, i'm there. if they have any questions. but you have no control. once you sell the book. they ask you things and you do have input. certainly with a story like this, you know, i'll be involved in terms of that. but, you know, it is kind of like john grisham says, once you sell it, it's your book, their movie. it's hard to say that. but at the same time, i've been very lucky. i loved "21", i thought it was fun. i loved "social network" so far

it's been great. you never know what's going to happen. >> would you ever just write a screen play? >> i've done a couple. i did a draft of one of my earlier books "ugly americans" which hasn't gotten made. it's a different format. for me the books are my main bread and butter. for me, they have to want me too. i spent a long time as a struggling writer. now i don't want to be a struggling screen writer and go through it again. the truth is they don't necessarily want you to adapt your own work. for whatever reason, it's not normally the first thing they go to. we'll see. we'll see. >> who should play thad? >> i did asked that a lot. that's up to the producers. it's got to be good looking guy that's athletic, mountain climbing, and a geek. it's kind of challenging. i've heard names lye shiloh

laboa. there's definitely a lot of young guys that could pull it off. it's a real juicy role for a guy. >> right. let's talk about the other aspect of the book business which i think is also typically interesting to folks. you are now on a whirl wind kind of promotional tour, 5 a.m. flights and multiple interviews. how does that square with the writers that's off from the rest of the world to get the last chapter right. it's dropped in the middle of the media push. >> it's a culture shock, you spent half of your year locked in a room and the other half talking to people. it's weird having schedules. normally, you don't care what time it is, you just write and get deep into project. then you have control over your life. when you are a tour, you have no control. but it's also wonderful. my tours have changed.

this is amazing. i remember my first book tour, my first stop was something called tunnel radio, which is a radio station that only aired in the callahan tunnel in boston. it's literally an a.m. station in a hundred yards and traffic station that someone got the ideas of shutting an author on. first of all, no one wants to hear you. they are trying to get the traffic report. then my second stop was in massachusetts, public access television station. i had written a book called "threshold" i mentioned in the future there may not be dwarfs. because we'll be able to genetically choose our children. it was a little sentence. i never thought it have. i show up and there's two chair. in one chair is a dwarf. [laughter] >> and it was my second publicity stop of my life. i sit down and i start to thinking wait a minute. this isn't good.

[laughter] >> and it was a debate. i didn't say there shouldn't be dwarfs. i say there may not be. you mean people won't want to choose dwarfs. then it became this whole -- then there was no budget. at the interview ended, we go outside and the dwarf had to give me a ride home. so i don't know. it was a strange day. >> your next book, the lead character was in, in fact. >> listen, i'm a big fan. i mean i watch game of thrones. i love game of thrones. he's awesome. >> speaking of projects. you had said you don't have your next one lined up right now. obviously, you are going to enjoy this. and continue with the media push. how will you begin to decide. you say that you are getting all of the e-mails of people wanting you to tell their stories.

what will you be looking for for the next project? >> you know, i look through all of the ideas and they come in. 99% of them are really bad. it's like every, you know, person that commits a crime now that gets any e-mails. but, you know, i need that sort of young kid, really smart, who's not a bad person who's in the gray area between right and wrong. this is the first height i've written, this is the first person that committed the crime. there has to be the elements that i like. the betrayal and sex and all of those kinds of things that janet doesn't like. and then there has to be, you know, some level of fun for me. so it has to be in a place where i want to go. because you have to spend six months to a year doing it. for me going to vegas, awesome. but, you know, i wouldn't go somewhere that would be horrible. so, yeah, those are kind of the things that i look for. >> so the next project, you are going to be looking for that type of character and type of story. >> yeah, i was thinking.

you know it would be cool if prince harry. i don't want to write william. but harry has a story; right? you know he has a story. that's what i'm looking for. if anybody knows him. >> e-mail address, strike up a conversation. >> no, i don't know what's next. i just wait and see. >> what are you reading? what are you doing when you are not working on the books and as you say just all of the time that you are spending with the research, what are you reading and what writers inspire you? >> right now it's a "game of thrones" are amazing. >> you mean that because of the hbo? >> no, i had started one before it. then i watched it, it was great. now i'm reading them all. those books are the reason the kindle is great. carrying those books around is serious business. those are great. i read a lot of what comes out. i read sebastian, and he's hard

core. he'd go to afghanistan and embed himself. while i'm embedded in vegas, 'em in afghanistan. i read everything. i love "the hunger games" trilogy. >> are you more comfortable now with screen writers as opposed to other authors? >> my friends aren't aren't area lot of writing friends. i don't know that many screen writers. because i live in l.a. they are there. i don't have a lot of close friends who are writers. i have a couple, guy named matthew pearl who wrote "the donte club" wonderful book. he's great. a few other local writers. there are not, you know, we don't it around in turtle necks and drink coffee. not that speed. yeah, but, yeah. >> we're starting to come up on

the time. as we say, ben is going to be doing a book signing immediately after this. there are other events with late night at the dma. i want to ask you a couple of more questions to round it out. we would like for the audience if you have a question to please come on down to one the standing mics up at the front and take you in order for 15 minutes or so and wrap up the evening at this point. so if you have some questions that you might begin to kind of think of those. let's continue more and turn it over to the audience. how would you describe how your writing has changed? you made the joke which i thought was funny that nobody had read your first six books. what you told me is you graduated from harvard, you knew you wanted to write books. not magazine articles, film plays, but books. you lock yourself away. how do you feel like you have matured as a writer. how did you learn the craft? what have you gotten better at? >> i locked myself in a room and

wrote nine novels and deep, dark stories that take place in washington, d.c. none of them got published. i got 190 rejection slips. i was rejected by everyone in new york. then i read john grisham and michael, and i wrote thrillers. they were trashy, fun, pop culture, medical thrillers, evil scientist, one of them was a tv movie called "fatal error" it started an underwear model. he plays a surgeon in the show. he's actually great, but there's a scene where i was watching it with my dad who a doctor now. he leans over the patient chest and goes we are a subdural hematoma. you know that's in the head;

right? i think i've gotten better than that. i think my style is improving. i feel strongly that "sex on the moon" is a big house. it was a transitional moment. i could write a true story. that's what i wrote in six weeks in vegas. literally a different hotel suite each night. publishers hate when you say you wrote it that quickly. the reality was it was the crazy -- i was living it and writing it. it was just nuts. that became the submersion technique. i go inside and live the story. anybody out there who wants to be a writer, those days of rejection are the most noble and romantic time. you should look forward to the rejection. i being a geeky guy had much rejection into my life up until that point with women. but then it became books and, you know, i would put them on the walls and each one would become the thing that i have to

beat the rejection. i will say when i got into public, finally started selling my books, every person that i worked with, i had a reject letter. which was cool. we love your staff. what about this? you didn't love this. right? [laughter] >> so, you know, you learn from the rejection and there's this huge wall in publishing. it's impossible to get over this wall. you know, it's a tough business. but it's that climb over the wall, i think, that makes you better. and i feel like now, you know, i'm a very different writer than i was in the beginning. >> right. right. right. you say you think this is your best work and best effort. what is it about it? what do you feel -- >> as i said, most the geeky guys i wrote about before were unable to get laid. this is the first character in which falling in love became his problem. and it was his down fall.

it's new for me to write a romance. the love letters from prison are in the book. the access that i had to him. even when i was with the mit kids. this is different. this is a kid saying i screwed up. and during writing the book, i had a kid which, you know, a lot of you know changes your life in a dramatic way. and i think that is infused in it to me, anyways, because, you know, you are not sleeping, right? but you are also dealing with massive sort of -- you are understanding things differently, i think. i think i tried to get inside this kids head more and more. >> i can't do any better than that. >> thank you very much. i appreciate it. >> the book obviously is "sex on the moon" we'll go questions for 15 minutes and there will be a book signing immediately afterwards. please if you have questions, we'll come down and we'll have standing mics on the front.

we'll call on you and fire away. yes, ma'am? >> you were asked what books you know now. i'm curious to know what books you like and read. >> my parents had a rule that we had to read two books a week before we were allowed to watch tv. which seens draconian now since i have a kid. i was obsessed with television. for me i became a speed reader. anything counted. i really got into science fiction, robert, the toll king books, then i graduated to hemmingway. i go through different types of books. i was reading candice bushnell. i shift from thing to thing.

i don't limit myself. i think growing up, it was mostly science fiction. >> when you are writing, "accidental billionaires" you didn't interview mark zuckerberg, just the people that were really mad at him. do you take their biases? >> in the book, i think it's clear it's eduardo. i think the book is more mark, and i had sean parker on the other side, and a lot of people that knew mark extremely well. from high school friends to college friends, and people that work at facebook. even though they spent an e-mail at facebook not to speak to me, that made people want to talk to me. it would have been great if mark had talked to me. no question. i don't think there's any way to look at the book or movie and say it's not true. i think the people that were there, other than mark, says that's what happened. so, you know, yes, eduardo

definitely had an ax to grind. the winklevoss as you see them, have an ax to grind. sean parker was a pretty good source and a wonderful person. crazy, i mean i think timberlake caught him perfectly. i feel sean is looking more and more like timelier -- timberlake now. you do have to take that into account. i feel like you can tell which is from his point of view, and which isn't. it's one the issues. >> other than "sex on the moon" it maybe, but which of the books have you written written -- whie was your favorite to write? >> "ugly americans" is a book that not a lot of people read. >> real quick question, are you still shopping? >> it was a kid, played football, never been out of new jersey, he's a princeton

university college, gets call from alum, invites him to japan, packs a duffel bag, flies to japan, ends up working for a guy liked nick liesman, who bankrupted the japanese stock market. it becomes the hot shot hedge fund cowboy, falls in love with a japanese gangster, and makes a deal that makes $500,000 in five minutes, and it takes place in japan and sex under ground of japan. it's a story of living large in asia. i thought it was a fun, fun book. it sold extremely well on wall street. every wall street guy had a copy. outside of wall street, it didn't really catch. we've worked on the movie for a while. spacey and dana are involved. i told it to numerous studios.

eventually, it will hopefully get made. bringing down the house is for me, if you want to know what i write, it's what i write. between those three really. >> go ahead, please. >> i've got two questions. one is thanks for coming, by the way. >> this is fun, thank you. >> good. i'm curious in your latest book, what was the subject's incentive for wanting to talk to you and have his story written. i'm also curious about this label of nonfiction. have you thought about putting it out and avoiding the controversy? >> first of all, it's the editors decision. that on the one hand. i feel very strongly it's nonfiction. i think it's clearly nonfiction. go through chapter by chapter and every scene to be documented both in court documents and in interviews. so, yes, it's written in a way

that reads like a thriller. but there's no way to call it fiction, because everything in that scene shaped. you know, obviously, it's always going to be a controversy. there will always be journalist searching out james frye. in the opening of my book, i say exactly what i'm going to do. there's no scandal. that upsets journalist. they want scandal. they always come and say you recreated dialogue. yeah, says on page one. but it's not made up. recreated from the people that were there. they expect me to shy away or run away from oprah. i'm happy to talk about it. think it's a valid form of nonfiction. it goes back to tom wolf, back beyond that. there's plenty of writers. and the designation is really up to the publishers. but i think it's very clearly nonfiction. but -- and then the second

question was about thad. why did he come to me? you know, that's a great question. obviously he saw himself as a movie character. when he did the crime, the james bond theme song was going through his head. and so he wants to be famous or infamous. which is tricky, obviously. but at the same time, he feels like he spent an enormous amount of his life in prison. seven and a half years is like -- murders get seven year and a halfs. he had the moon rocks for a week. he used them. no question about it. he fell like he served so much time, telling his story was the right thing to do. not that he's proud. at the same time, he feels like he did the crazy thing and there's no reason why he shouldn't tell people. does he feel bad about it, yes? is he ashamed of himself? i don't know. that is a question. people come to me because they want to get famous.

that's definitely part of it. also they look at it like the mit kids, it's like we had the sports career that nobody knows about. they want people to know about it. there is that. yeah. >> yes, sir. >> hi, i thought one of your best books was "rigged." >> yeah. >> i was hoping you could talk about that and your time in dubai. >> "rig" takes place in dubai, he was a harvard school business kid and he worked at the merck exchange in new york where they traded oil. then he went to dubai and set up the dubai merck basically. he set up the oil trading world in dubai at the time. it's a crazy story that takes place all over the world. and dubai, very short trip for me there, in and out. you know, you guys like the hot weather. i don't know. but for me i'm a little weak.

but it's a wild story. the whole world about oil. the kid i knew, he invited me to ring the bell. i went down there to ring the bell and looked out on the incredible sea of tough guys. pushing and throwing tickets at each other. there was one clerk at a small guy. he hired a bunch of people behind him, who's entire job was to hold him into the training floor. i was like this is cool. that's what made me write "rigged" we're also working on that as well. we'll see if that gets going. >> yes, ma'am? >> i just wanted to actually read something funny to you base the on the conversation about recreating dialogue. >> sure. >> this is tonight's program. >> oh yeah? mezrich poured over thousands of pages of court records, nasa

documents and has interviewed most of the participate to reinstruct the ocean-11 style heist. already the novel has been snatched up by hollywood to create a film. >> yeah, that happens. [laughter] >> you know what, i think -- yeah, people use the word novel interchangeably. i hope that's not my fault. i think, you know, it will always be a controversy, i think, in my career. i my most people are coming around to form of new nonfiction. when i tour in england and europe, they have no problem. there's not a discussion. they are like where are american journalist so upset with their writing. i don't know what to tell them. it seems to be more controversial at "the new york times" an anywhere else. >> yes, ma'am? >> i wanted to ask you for your next big project when you are

looking for that story, do you prefer to write about and do a project about a story that's unfolding like "bringing down the house" or more retrospective like "social network." >> i love idea of getting inside a story of right when its happening. it's hard. you don't know where it's going to end. you don't want to spend years chasing something that's not going to happen. that would be the idea of the story where you are in the thick of it as it's happening. both this and "accidental billionaires" happened years ago. i would love it if it were happening. you have to know the ending. that's where it gets hard. >> any other questions? yes, ma'am. please. >> can you share with us what -- i hope i pronounce this right, thad is doing right now that he's a criminal? >> yeah, he got out of prison, went back to the university of utah to get his phd.

i think he left utah. he wants to go to space, obviously, not at nasa. but he says maybe in the private sector one day. he's a smart guy. it's a question of over coming his own demon. he's got issues. he's very spontaneous and he doesn't -- maybe he needs to control himself. but, you know, i hope the best for him. i hope he, you know, -- he served his time, he paid his dues, if he's smart, he'll study and he'll brilliant and get his phd and move on that way. he's, you know, he's a good kid that did a bad thing. >> how has he responded to the book? >> he liked most of it. he didn't like axel's prominence or the idea he was rewarded for taking him down. he didn't like some of the delusional and fantasy aspect. he said it was hard to see yourself from someone else's

eyes. he liked it. i captured being at nasa and all of the stuff in the beginning very well. over all, he liked it. there were things he didn't like. >> right. any other questions? well, -- yes, sir, please. >> curious, you said you had fascination with nasa at the top. if you were from this country, you'd think that nasa program is over because we just shut down the space shuttle. >> right. >> what did you find out that you got made? >> well, you know, i think it's all about mars. you know, i think that's the next step. even though, obviously when you think about it, are we going to spend billions and billions of dollars to try to do this. at the same time, we spent billions of dollars doing all sorts of things. why not do manage she's incredible. when you think back, there was no real point to that; right? it was incredible. but it was incredible; right? it changed our lives, changed our world. it was wonderful. i feel like we should do that again. i would love to see all of the

money getting put into going to mars. that would be my dream. it's sad the space shuttle is ending. it's sad to see these things that they advance the human species just by existing. i feel like the race to mars would advance us in ways that we can't tell yet. that's my very pronasa speech. i hope that we fund a mission to mars. >> was has nasa's response been? >> they weren't happy i was writing the book. they were embarrassed. this is a guy from the inside. he stole a 600 pound safe off of the campus. they weren't thrilled. they didn't want to make me into a hero. they haven't responded. when people read the book, they are going to love it. i think it makes nasa look very cool and it will hopefully get people to want to be involved. i think they'll like it. i thought facebook would like" the social network."

they did come around. it's not an hit job. that's for sure. >> one last question and we'll call it an evening. yes, ma'am, right in the middle. >> what happened to the girlfriend? fall out with her legally or otherwise? >> so thad with the climb with the girlfriend and another girl, and then he took the fall. he forced them to do it. him and the other guy went to jail and the girls did not. they got probation and she never spoke to him again. it was sad, you know, they had known each other three weeks. it was quick love. and when she was in the courtroom and i think it was the judge or the prosecutor asked her, you knew this kid for three weeks. why would you do this? she's like, i'm still trying to figure it out. it was one of those things. they've moved on. they were not happy that i wrote this book. i talked to the main character. she asked me to change her name, she wanted nothing to do with it. i think she was in texas. she didn't want to be involved.

so yeah. well, listen, thank you so much. this is wonderful. >> thank you for being here. and thank you again. >> this was great. [applause] >> when did they meet? >> they met when cecelia was

purchased by her father. that happened in 1831, she was just an infant. it was really a purchase of the mother with the infant in her arms essentially. and that's when they met. at that time fanny had two, a younger sister and a younger brother and the younger sister was very young. most likely, mary, who was cecelia's mother who was. ed -- who was purchased as a nurse maid. >> so they kind of grew up together? >> they did grow up together. the younger children, fanny's younger brother and sister, they died young in the mid 1830s. one right after the other. you know, you can imagine this big family of four and it goes

to the family of -- big family of six that goes to a family of four. and all of the sudden fanny is no longer the big sister, she's the little girl again. and the person nearest to her age in the house is cecelia. so they really do grow up as companions and as probably something close to friends when they were younger. because at that point, fanny wouldn't have had a lot of slave mistress expectations. cecelia would have had chores, task to do, she would have kind of i guess nonessential personnel in terms of running the household. so it was -- it was a long, long-lived relationship, really cecelia's whole life began with fanny and most of fanny's life.

>> when did the roles change? >> well, they started to change when fanny became of age. she was what's known as the queen of may which was kind of celebration of may day here in town. and they would drown -- crown a may queen. there would be a parade and it was a big coming out for prominent daughters. she would have been viewed as desirable, a marriage prospect, and it was about that time that fanny's father gave cecelia has a gift directly to fanny as a kind of coming of age gift. it was kind of a signal that, you know, your future is as a slave holding woman and you need to learn to manage slave property. so it would have been about that time that you moved from the -- what i think of as the

horizontal bonds of companionship to a more vertical relationship to mistress and slave? >> what effect did it have? >> you know, it's hard to tell from the archives that don't comment on it directly. i think from other sources and other things we know, you know that that would intinuate the relationship and change the tone. one thing, it would separate cecelia more and more from her mother still in the household. as a household slave, she would have still been under the control somewhat of her mother. once she becomes fanny's personal maid, really it moves her away from her mother into fanny's realm. and it's going to drive home the contradictions of slavery, i think, to cecelia a lot more. fanny is free to court who she wants, cecelia is not. but cecelia is probably going to

have a role in getting fanny dressed and in passing messages back and forth from different households about who's interested, who she likes, what such and such a wearing and all of that stuff. it's going to drive home the difference really profoundly between what the slaves life is like and what a free person's life is like. i think that's going to drive a wedge between any two people. and then there's always cecelia uncertainty, i think, if she gets married and moves out of the house, that changes her life. separates her from her mother. who knows what the husband will be like, who knows if he already has domestic servants and is going to tell her off. it injects a lot of uncertainty and distrust into the relationship. >> when does the family take their trip to niagara falls? >> 1846. they -- fanny has spent the summer in in -- no, i'm sorry, e

winter with relatives in washington, d.c.. and since there was a wedding involved, i think it was a cousin of hers was gedding married, there was a wedding involved, it was a chance to see and be seen in washington society. most likely cecelia would have gone with her over the winter, stayed in washington with her, and then in april her father, fanny's father, charles, probably comes through d.c. and they go take a trip up the coast to niagara. and so sometime probably late april, late may they are no niagara falls. that's where cecelia makes her bid for freedom and escapes. >> how does she do that? >> we don't really know. fanny's sun -- son says one morning they woke up and she was gone. he blames it