“It is a very simple detective story,” Michael Lewis is saying. “A young Canadian trader figured out that something squirrely was happening in the stock market. And he went on a search to figure out how it operated.” Lewis is describing his new book, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, which details how high frequency trading has allowed so-called “dark pools” to make huge profits by gaining an unfair edge in the market. Average investors, in this narrative, are cheated.

Lewis, who was formerly a writer at The New Republic, has written about Wall Street before, and is the author of several bestsellers, including Moneyball and The Big Short. In a phone conversation this week we talked about his politics, his critics, his lost faith in the government, and The Wolf of Wall Street. He immediately began by discussing book promotion.

Michael Lewis: Being on tour consists of dread, followed by a brief period of excitement, followed by a long period of boredom, followed by deadness of spirit.

Isaac Chotiner: That sounds like dating a little bit.

ML: Well, in this way: the absence makes the heart grow fonder. The further away from my book tour I get, the more I like it. And this is really true: by the middle of a day of talking about it, I hate it. Have you ever covered a political campaign?