Riding the Rough String: Reflections on the American West, by Toby Thompson From one of the most highly-regarded journalists in America comes this unique series of profiles, meditations, essays, and explorations. For more than fifty years, Toby Thompson has been considering what it means to live and work in the West. Starting from a foundation of literary portraiture in which he profiles some of the most engaging writers in America—Gretel Ehrlich to Thomas McGuane, William Kittredge to Hunter S. Thompson, Tim Cahill to Gary Snyder—his wide-ranging curiosity embraces subjects as diverse as the history of the famous barroom lithograph, Custer’s Last Fight, the deeper meaning of Montana pickup trucks, wild nights of Livingston, Montana, in the 1970s, and the making of the film A River Runs Through It. Toby Thompson is the author of three previous books: Positively Main Street: Bob Dylan’s Minnesota, Saloon and The ‘60s Report. He has written for publications as diverse as Vanity Fair, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Gray’s Sporting Journal, GQ, Men’s Journal, Sports Afield, Playboy, Outside, Big Sky Journal, Western Art & Architecture, The New York Times, The Washington Post and many others. He teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA program at Penn State. He lives in Livingston, Montana and Cabin John, Maryland.