Profiles, meditations, essays, and explorations…For more than forty years, Toby Thompson has been considering what it means to live and work in the American West. And now, with Riding the Rough String, a lifetime’s worth of accomplishment is roped together under one cover. His wide-ranging curiosity considers not only our most luminous literary figures (Gary Snyder to Gretel Ehrlich, Thomas McGuane to Hunter Thompson) but the region’s history and culture as well. Saloons and art, pickups and A River Runs Through It, Thompson shows us the West through a new lens: unique, clear-eyed, essential.

The mountains and rivers, the high plains and the good Montana people (and the funny and the not so good or funny)–the dead-on info, the stories, that’s the main thing, the stories)–Toby Thompson has it right. Riding the Rough String is a fine sport and an all-day pleasure.

William Kittredge author of Hole in the Sky

Toby Thompson knows Montana’s bars, books, bridges, and backcountry. I’ll read anything he writes.

Tim Cahill author of Hold the Enlightenment

Like the rest of the gang, Toby Thompson played it smart and went west. His sharp eye and interviewer’s ear caught every nuance. Riding the Rough String sets it all down with verve and assurance.

William Hjortsberg author of Jubilee Hitchhiker

Toby Thompson is a writer and journalist of the old school, a standup guy who knows music and literature and walks the walk and understands the human heart. I’m honored to be included in his work.

James Lee Burke author of Creole Belle