Steps Steeper Than Mountains, by Barry Schweiger

It is time for a senior’s tale. Steps Steeper Than Mountains is neither a ‘how-to’ nor a spiritual guide but an inspirational memoir of a grieving senior from the U.S. shuffling alone for four weeks through Europe who, through beauty, wine, sex, sorrow, and duress, enters a new, restored life. Themes include growth through grieving, the joy of art and beauty, being lost in massive airports, finding endurance, and accepting aging’s decline.

Written by a senior enriched with decades of roller coaster experiences, Steps Steeper Than Mountains presents a quintessential Hero’s journey in the classic sense whose ending births a beginning. Steps Steeper Than Mountains visually and emotively catapults the reader through this cathartic journey from the first moments of identity-destroying grief, agonizingly restricted for two years by the Covid pandemic from honoring his wife’s wishes to disburse her ashes in Greece.

Readers of Chronicles of Reluctant Widowers by Gary Pelser, Luke Russet’s NYT bestseller Look for Me There…, and Neil King Jr.’s American Ramble, where seniors face the challenges of aging and grieving, will find this memoir captivating – as he strolls in fascinating cities, survives challenging situations, becomes involved with another woman for the first time in fifty years, and returning home finds vigor in the clean air of his new life.