In Deep Radio - FRANCES STROH


Credit: Gordon Whiting
 

 

 

 

Angie Coiro - In Deep Radio live at Kepler's

Wednesday, May 18, 2016, 12:00  p.m. 

RSVP HERE.

Doors open at 11:30 a.m. Show starts promptly at 12:00 p.m!

 

Featured Guest: 

Frances Stroh,  Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss

 

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 Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss 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.

 

Frances Stroh received her B.A. from Duke University and her M.A. from Chelsea College of Art in London as a Fulbright Scholar. She practiced as an installation artist, exhibiting in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and London before turning to writing. Frances is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, and her work explores issues of identity, point of view, and the mythologies that define us.

 

 

 

 

 

Event date: 
Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - 12:00pm
Event address: 
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025-4349