How to Walk with Steve is a memoir of a boy’s connection with his autistic brother in a family defined by alcoholism, art, and death in a decaying Midwestern city.

With exposed-nerve scenes, Robert Fromberg immerses us in an early childhood made relentlessly unpredictable by autism and addiction; teenage years alone in 1970s New York City; and young adulthood as guardian of his brother after the death of their parents.

Praise for How to Walk with Steve:

Robert Fromberg’s poignant memoir details the painful ordinariness of misery – even for the bright scion of an artistic family … In refusing easy consolations, Fromberg has created a memoir that shines like polished bone.

–Patricia Eakins, author of The Hungry Girls and Other Stories

Without a trace of affectation or adornment, Fromberg depicts the searing moments that made him who he is. Never have I read a more authentic, deeply-felt rendering of a child’s developing mind.

–Leslie Lawrence, author of The Death of Fred Astaire and Other Essays from a Life Outside the Lines

Fragmented yet unified, direct yet elusive, How to Walk with Steve is a vivid memoir about family and geography, obligation and freedom. Fromberg has a remarkable ability to inject meaning into silence, into the cracks between sections, into all the things that remain unsaid.

–Brett Biebel, author of 48 Blitz

How to Walk with Steve by Rob Fromberg is an inviting, conversational, and deeply personal portrait of a man’s relationship with his brother across places and across time. Using small sections that can feel like standalone poems, Fromberg carefully crafts a resonant memoir about the challenges and obligations-and also the faith and love-that connect siblings through the years. Full of humor, honesty, and surprise, How to Walk with Steve is sure to succeed with nonfiction readers who appreciate unrelenting wit and candor.

–Scott Kenemore, author of Lake of Darkness