en Tough Trips is William W. Bevis's literary journey through the works of ten of the West's most prominent authors, including A. B. Guthrie, Jr., D'Arcy McNickle, James Welch, Richard Hugo, Ivan Doig, and Norman Maclean. In a series of essays originally assembled to complement The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology, Bevis deflates European myths of escape to a natural West beyond civilization and shows how Montana has developed its own voice, true to the complications and austerities of a splendid land. His chapters on Native American writers have been especially well received. Through sensitive and discerning analysis, Bevis shows how love of the land can become more enduring and haunting even as the myths are stripped away, and in a new afterword, he addresses the emergence of important women writers from 1990 to the present. Of particular note is his consideration of Mary Clearman Blew and her extraordinary memoir, All But the Waltz, which Bevis believes to be a pioneering work reflective of the post-modern West.