Ben Mezrich - Sex on the Moon

Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires became the blockbuster hit The Social Network onscreen. His Bringing Down the House morphed into the less successful 21. Think he picked a name as titillating as Sex on the Moon for his newest nonfiction so one of his book’s titles would finally survive the transition to film? Whether or not this was Mezrich’s intention, the title is a stretch; this true tale of a NASA college intern and his girlfriend stealing moon rocks from Johnson Space Center in Houston has only one sexy scene shoehorned into it.

It’s still a solid heist story, including crucial elements such as a scrappy sidekick, an Antwerp buyer and undercover FBI agents. But Mezrich paints his thief, University of Utah student Thad Roberts, with a more sympathetic brush than the one he used for that scoundrel Mark Zuckerberg. The affection he feels for the criminal is forgivable: Roberts endured a harsh Mormon upbringing and studied his way into being an astronaut hopeful in record time. But the book is too lenient with Roberts’s position that NASA’s – that is, the country’s – used lunar specimens were “trash” and therefore his for the taking. What’s more, Mezrich doesn’t question Roberts’s claim that his multimillion-dollar crime was a romantic gesture gone awry – even though the crime was in the works well before this Clyde met his Bonnie.

Mezrich cops to reimagining conversations and scenes that are long past, but sometimes veers into overwrought melodrama. He’s at his best when exploring the fascinating world of NASA politicking and the smart-kid camaraderie Roberts found there. But we never get an answer to the real mystery – why one self-made man shot for the moon but ended up with grand larceny.

Sex on the Moon, Random House, RRP $29.95

More book reviews and literary events in Sydney? Sign up to our weekly newsletter