Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis is the author of the text. Throughout The Premonition, Lewis assumes an unconventional authorial stance. Rather than relying upon his personal voice, beliefs, conjectures, or opinions to motivate the text's explorations, Lewis places central focus on his research subjects' stories. In the text's introduction, he explains, "I like to think that my job is mainly to find the story in the material. I always hope that story will wind up being about more than what I think it's about—and that the reader will bring to it his own sense-making apparatus and find meanings in it missed by its author. But that doesn't mean that I don't form some opinion of what it's about. I think this particular story is about the curious talents of a society, and how those talents are wasted if not led" (xv). In this passage, Lewis establishes his approach...