Podcast appearances and mentions of frances stroh

Frances Stroh grew up in the family that owned America’s third biggest brewer, Stroh Brewing Company. As she aged into adulthood, she watched as both the brewery and her family life fell apart. She talks about the struggles the company faced, how her family dealt with it, and when a legacy can become a burden.

Every family has its secrets. When you come from a family of privilege, those secrets can lead to front-page headlines when they finally come to light. That was the case for Frances Stroh, author of Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss, who joins me in today's episode of Shared Secrets to discuss her family’s fall from grace after generations of wealth. In the episode, Frances tells me about growing up in a wealthy but dysfunctional household, and about how the collapse of her family’s brewing empire contributed to her family’s great personal losses. Frances also shares how a sense of entitlement can build through generations, and how a family legacy can cloud individual passion and identity. And she tells me about how she used art—she’s a former Fulbright scholar—to find a path out of the dysfunction and toward her own true identity.

Host Cyrus Webb welcomes Frances Stroh to #ConversationsLIVE to discuss what it was like for her to reflect on life and the lessons of the past while writing the book BEER MONEY on #ConversationsLIVE.

Martha's guests this week are Alan Light, Dani Shapiro, and Frances Stroh.

Martin talks to Frances Stroh about Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss. Stroh’s debut as an author is a memoir of a city, an industry, and a dynasty in decline, and the story of a young artist’s struggle to find her way out of the ruins. Frances Stroh’s earliest memories are ones of great privilege: shopping trips to London and New York, lunches served by black-tied waiters at the Regency Hotel, and a house filled with precious antiques, which she was forbidden to touch. Established in Detroit in 1850, by 1984 the Stroh Brewing Company had become the largest private beer fortune in America and a brand emblematic of the American dream itself. While Stroh was coming of age, the Stroh family fortune was estimated to be worth $700 million. But behind the beautiful façade lay a crumbling foundation. Detroit’s economy collapsed with the retreat of the automotive industry to the suburbs and abroad and likewise the Stroh family found their wealth and legacy disappearing. As their fortune dissolved in little over a decade, the family was torn apart internally by divorce and one family member's drug bust; disagreements over the management of the business; and disputes over the remaining money they possessed. Even as they turned against one another, looking for a scapegoat on whom to blame the unraveling of their family, they could not anticipate that even far greater tragedy lay in store. Featuring beautiful evocative photos throughout, Stroh’s memoir is elegantly spare in structure and mercilessly clear-eyed in its self-appraisal—at once a universally relatable family drama and a great American story. The interview was recorded on May 23, 3016

Frances Stroh is the guest. Her new memoir, Beer Money, is available now from Harper. In today's monologue, I talk about the logistics of vacationing with my family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices