Peter Elkind was on a ski vacation with his family when word came over his BlackBerry that a certain former college acquaintance who had not long before been elected governor of New York was embroiled in a prostitution scandal and would soon resign. Elkind, the author of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, has known Spitzer since both were at Princeton—one as the editor of the campus paper, the other as a striving student and budding politician. He got to know Spitzer better when the future governor served as attorney general, interviewing him often about his crusades against Wall Street titans. The relationship continued as Elkind set out to do his latest book, with the two spending over 20 hours together over the course of the reporting for Rough Justice, a work Elkind hopes will serve as the definitive biography of the former governor’s life and career—so far.

He took time out of his book tour to speak with The Capitol in the Time-Life building, where he works as a senior editor for Fortune Magazine.

What follows is an edited tran scri pt.

The Capitol: Why did you decide to do a book on Eliot Spitzer, and why now do we need yet another book about him?
Peter Elkind: Well, I decided to do this book just shortly after the scandal broke. I had gone to college with Eliot, and I had written about him a lot as attorney general, and I was certainly as shocked as anyone else. I mean, it was stunning. You couldn’t imagine something more improbable ending his career. And then as I made a few calls, it was clear that there were a lot of really interesting issues. It’s sort of a combination of a political mystery and a window into Wall Street and kind of a whodunit all at once. And it was, of course, a story about a marriage. And that’s a pretty good story.

TC: Why do you think he participated?
PE: I think he felt that he would be treated fairly. I mean, we had some history together, as a journalist and a source. He also believes, if he’s in a situation where he can be heard, he can make his own closing argument, as he put it. He’s a very smart guy, he’s very articulate, he’s willing to talk about things in details. And he was very generous with his time and forthcoming with this book. Now, there are a lot of personal areas that were difficult, and getting him to talk openly about that was more difficult than getting him to talk about Troopergate or about what was wrong with the state budget process.

TC: Did it take some convincing to get him to do it?
PE: When I first decided to do this book, I passed word to him—and at that point he had PR people working with him—that I was doing it. I didn’t ask his permission. This is an unauthorized book. But I let him know and I said, “I’d obviously very much like to talk to you. I’d love to do it as soon as possible. I want to let you know this is in the works. Feel free to get in touch with me if you want to talk about it informally.” And then we had our first meeting and I kind of batted around what I was doing a little bit. Then we just started talking. His AG years I knew pretty well. His time as governor was something I knew nothing about. I wasn’t in New York at the time, and I was watching from a great distance, so I had a lot of work to do on that front. So I ended up spending a lot of time in Albany.

TC: And what did you think of the capital?
PE: It’s a disaster area. It explains why government doesn’t work. That’s part of the tale of seeing his frustration grow, why he was elected with the record landslide he was, on a reform platform, and how much was at stake in his candidacy and his time as governor. And how horribly he disappointed everyone. I mean, his expectations were insurmountable, impossible. But he came in with promises of changing everything on day one and really thought he could transform the place. It certainly didn’t work out that way.

TC: Do you think there’s still more of Eliot Spitzer?
PE: He would dearly, dearly love to get back in politics, that’s clear. … He desperately misses being in the game. You see him participating in every way he can. He’s writing a column for Slate, he’s giving speeches, he’s making many TV appearances. I think his columns for Slate are probably the best thing he’s done. You know, welcome to journalism, Eliot.

TC: Does he have the standing to contribute to the conversation?
PE: The fact of the financial crisis has accelerated his rehabilitation, because you’re in a situation where everybody got this wrong, and you’re looking for who was on the right side, and he was. He was raising questions about Wall Street behavior a long time in a very strong way. He was warning about the dangers of deregulation, he was after AIG, he was talking about executive compensation. Prostitutes notwithstanding, I think we should give him his due for having done important things on Wall Street.

TC: Do you get the sense, however, that he’s plotting about coming back? Is this part of it? Are you part of it? Or does he just like the give-and-take?
PE: I think somewhere in between. When he started writing for Slate, I think no one thought he could make a political comeback—at all, certainly not anytime soon. I think that was his way and perhaps the only way at that point for him to play a role in the process. And he finds sitting on the sidelines incredibly frustrating. It drives him nuts. And he wanted to weigh in. And surely there’s ego in there, no question about it. But do I think it was all a master plan to get back in? No. I mean I think it’s more visceral, almost. Think about the way he got back: when he was cleared by the U.S. Attorney’s office, he had a column in the Washington Post almost days later. He was just itching to get back into this. I talked to him during this process and he was kind of bouncing off the wall with things he wanted to say and incredibly frustrated that at the moment his stock should have been the highest—because he was right on the financial disaster—he was muzzled. He had taken himself out. And in terms of the book, is that part of it? Certainly he’s got self-interest in mind—of course. And I think he figured there’s going to be a pretty full airing here by someone who’s pretty serious about this, and is it better to talk to him and cooperate, or not? And he thinks he can get his point across better and be heard.

TC: Does he seem frustrated, broken, chastened?
PE: I think he’s very chastened, he’s certainly frustrated, albeit less so than he was in the beginning. Because he’s more engaged. And being listened to. Is he broken? He is tortured by how he screwed up, I think, and acutely conscious of it every day. But he’s kind of putting himself back together. It’s not easy. I had a conversation with him where I said, “Every time you talk, you get attacked. Why do you do this? Why do you bother?” And he said, “Well, you know, this is the way the political process works. You inevitably have to take the slings and arrows.” And I said, “Wait a second now, you’re a private citizen. You’re not governor anymore. You don’t have to do this. You’re choosing to do this.” And he’s clearly made a choice to do that, even though it’s pretty brutal. It’s too important to him. And so he’s doing it by choice.

TC: Has Spitzer read the book yet? What do you think he will say about it?
PE: I got him the book, and I haven’t heard from him whether he’s read it, or how he feels about it. But I’m sure he will read it. I hope to hear what he thinks. I hope he thinks it’s fair. 

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photo by Andrew Schwartz