A Page Turner

"Young people making tons of money at the edge of ethics and morality - those are the stories that turn me on." That's how author Ben Mezrich identifies his literary niche. Published two years ago, his Bringing Down the House tells the true story of six MIT students who looted Las Vegas casinos for millions of dollars in the 1990s. His new book, Ugly Americans, tells the true story of several young Ivy Leaguers who looted Asian financial markets for millions of dollars in the 1990s. "The genre I'm creating has very wide appeal," he explains. "I don't see anyone else doing it yet. I'm trying to break new ground in nonfiction, and my goal is to write two books a year."

Imaginatively enhanced nonfiction represents a new tack for Mezrich (rhymes with "stick"), whose first six books were thrillers. The thrillers sold well, but it was Bringing Down the House, he says, that "dramatically changed my life and career." Though it had a modest first printing of 18,000 copies, the book is now in its 13th softcover printing and has spent more than 10 months on the New York Times paperback bestseller list. Consequently, Mezrich pulled a seven-figure advance for Ugly Americans, which his Hollywood people call "Lost in Translation meets Wall Street." Film actor Kevin Spacey is producing both nonfiction books for MGM and will star in Bringing Down the House, which begins shooting this summer. Such deals have plunged Mezrich into "this high-powered Hollywood scene," he says; now he hobnobs with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn at the New York hot spot Bungalow 8 and gets invited to the Playboy mansion.

"I want to live like a character in one of my books," says Mezrich. He's getting there. Mezrich has made tons of money: His eight books appear in 14 languages, and he once blew through $1.4 million in only seven months of living large. "I did it without buying a single thing that cost more than $5,000," he marvels. "I'd wake up feeling bored at noon on Wednesday and go to the airport, not even taking a bag. Buy a first-class ticket to Paris or London, go to a top-rated hotel, and take an $1,800-a-night suite for 10 days. I'd invite some friends who lived in Europe to join me."

Now he's 35 -- though the baby-faced, spiky-haired Mezrich looks far younger -- and a bit more disciplined. Each of his books takes three months to research and three months to write. While writing, Mezrich barricades himself in his Boston apartment and goes nowhere, working obsessively from midnight to dawn. But during the research phase, he gets out and explores his narrative personally: For Bringing Down the House, he flew to Las Vegas with $250,000 in cash strapped to his body, and for Ugly Americans, he spent a month in Tokyo visiting underground sex clubs, riding in bulletproof limousines, and brushing up against the Japanese Mafia, the Yakuza. "I enjoy researching my books," he says. "But I don't enjoy the fact-checking part of what it takes to be a journalist."

Rigorously factual, journalistic narratives are "a really colorless way to look at a story," he says. "For Bringing Down the House, as a thriller writer I was able to see scenes that took place five or 10 years ago and re-create them in a vivid, cinematic way. A lot of nonfiction is missing that cinematic element. You don't want to just write, 'He got chased out of this casino by two security guards.' It's like comedy improv -- you're given these data points and you develop a sketch. The better your imagination, the better your nonfiction can be. I wrote [Bringing Down the House] as a thriller; it just happens to be true."

In Ugly Americans, Mezrich's thriller/nonfiction hybrid is a dramatic story that unfolds with Hollywood-style plot points at well-timed intervals. On the other hand, an Entertainment Weekly reviewer wrote, "You'll be damned to figure out what's true in Ugly Americans, a puzzling piece of 'nonfiction' ..." The pseudonymous main character, John Malcolm, is a Princeton football star who goes to Tokyo and practices "arbitrage with a battle axe" on the Nikkei. The book cloaks Malcolm's actual identity by altering details (though his real-life model can only be one Michael Lerch, a 1993 graduate of Princeton). "The story is true," Mezrich explains, "and many descriptions have been changed. The fact that I can't document any specific bit of dialogue in the book doesn't mean the dialogue isn't true. The conversations did happen."

Thus, a "true" story in which many details are false -- or invented. Who can say? Ponder for yourself whether Mezrich is obscuring essential realities below the facts or is yet another media person erasing the line between truth and fiction, news and entertainment. He's aware of such issues but doesn't ruminate on them. "My stories deal with ethics in a real way, not a philosophical way," he explains. "The characters are making millions of dollars, but some people would think that what they are doing is wrong." There's physical danger and suspense, but what's generally at stake is property, not life. "I'm fairly shallow," he says, chuckling. "I'm not a deep, dark person. I gravitate toward things that are fun and exciting."

It's working. Mezrich's lifestyle certainly includes glamour -- he notes parallels among the lives of rock stars, pro athletes, and best-selling authors -- but isn't consumed by it. His future orbit will circle closer to Hollywood and involve screenwriting ("Because the money is so good"), but Mezrich plans to stay in Boston, partly because he lacks a key Los Angeles survival tool: He doesn't drive. Mezrich's apartment, high in a tower near the Prudential Center, boasts a jaw-dropping view of Back Bay and the Charles River: There's a spinet piano, a few electric guitars, a large-screen Mitsubishi television, and a pug puppy that he shares with his girlfriend of four years. The apartment is on the 26th floor, only one stop before the penthouse.

Craig Lambert is deputy editor of Harvard Magazine.