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 post-industrial 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.

“Over time, the writer grows beyond merely accepting responsibility for his brother; he comes to cherish him and the irreducible bond the brothers share when all else is stripped away. In refusing easy consolations, Fromberg has created a memoir that shines like polished bone.”

Patricia Eakins, author of The Hungry Girls and Other Stories

“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.”

Robert Fromberg is author of How to Walk with Steve (Latah Books), a memoir of Fromberg’s life with his autistic brother, which won the 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Award in the memoir category. He is also author of the new essay collection Friends and Fiends, Pulp Stars and Pop Stars (Alien Buddha Press). He has published prose in Indiana Review, Colorado Review, Bellingham Review, and many other journals, and is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books. He has been nominated for a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize, and he taught writing at Northwestern University for 17 years. Fromberg lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife, Sheryl Lilke, who is a psychotherapist and painter.

Livestream: Robert Fromberg