[4][6] That book, Bicycle Days, a coming of age story about a young American man in Japan, was published in 1989 on his 24th birthday, and garnered strong reviews.
[3] Schwartz's second novel Reservation Road (1998), about a family tragedy and its aftermath, was critically acclaimed, and in 2007 was made into a major motion picture.
[4][9] Schwartz went on to publish Claire Marvel (2002), a love story set in the United States and France,[10][11] and, in 2008, The Commoner, a novel inspired by the life of Empress Michiko of Japan, the current empress and crown princess of Japan, and the first commoner to marry into the Japanese imperial family.
[4] He was a co-writer, with Sam Levinson and Samuel Baum, of the screenplay for The Wizard of Lies, a 2017 HBO movie about the disgraced financier Bernie Madoff, based on the non-fiction book of the same title by Diana B. Henriques; the screenplay was a 2018 nominee for a Writers Guild of America Award, for an adapted long-form program.
[12] Schwartz has contributed articles to publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, and Vogue.