Stroh’s absorbing memoir suggests that most cocoons are permeable and that privilege is relative.” — New York Times Book Review
“With the piercing eye of a visual artist ... Stroh stitches together her and her family’s stories in a series of verbal snapshots.... Stroh’s compelling memoir vividly portrays the aching permanence of loss and the palpability of hope that accompanies starting over.” — Publishers Weekly
“Beer Money is one of those memoirs you neither put down nor forget. I’ll remember Frances Stroh’s family—and the beautifully candid, honest and often unforgettable voice she uses to describe them—for a long time. I was very moved by this book.” — George Hodgman, author of Bettyville
“How does a family dynasty die? In her image-rich memoir, ‘Beer Money,’ Frances Stroh asks the question with heroic honesty, from the inside.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“With an artist’s eye for visual detail… her frank and engrossing memoir captures the long decline of the city of Detroit and her sadly dysfunctional family.” — BBC.com
“A compelling story of loss, but also of the resiliency needed to forgive the past and forge a new future. The Strohs may have lost the trappings of the American Dream, but Frances Stroh finds something of greater value: compassion for family despite—and because of—their missteps and flaws.” — Melissa Coleman, author of This Life Is in Your Hands
“I thought of Sean Wilsey’s great memoir as I read, but what makes Stroh’s book so particular are the class contradictions. In movie terms think Ralph Lauren meets Old Milwaukee. Oh, and it’s also a very moving and powerful story of one young woman’s coming of age.” — Tom Barbash, author of Stay Up With Me
“If the family owned and operated Stroh’s Brewing Co. strived to preserve an image as highbrow folks who nevertheless understood the desires of everyday consumers, Frances Stroh... strips away the facade and reclaims truth.” — San Jose Mercury News
“Of course, the Strohs’ story is fascinating in itself. But what makes this memoir special is Frances Stroh’s clear, brave voice. Free of regret or judgment, she renders even her family’s darkest moments with grace and love. A page-turner in the very best sense.” — Katie Crouch, author of Girls in Trucks and Abroad
“In Beer Money , Frances Stroh takes us on a fascinating—and often chilling—journey into the world of dark privilege. In prose that is both beautiful and unflinching, Stroh tells a riveting story about the fall of an American family, an American city, and possibly the American Dream itself.” — Janis Cooke Newman, author of A Master Plan for Rescue
“[Stroh] writes candidly and insightfully about the growing solicitude that grew inside her throughout her life. The assortment of family portraits displaying the dichotomy of smiling faces and secret hurts echoes that suffering in haunting fashion.... A sorrowful, eye-opening examination of familial dysfunction.” — Kirkus
“The quintessential American Dream is a heartwarming rags-to-riches tale, but a good riches-to-rags story can be just as captivating…. Stroh shucked her strangling legacy. With Beer Money , she is on her way to a fresh new writing career—perhaps a riches-to-rags-to-riches story in the making.” — Shelf Awareness
“Fluently written ... Should have appeal beyond strong regional interest.” — Booklist
I thought of Sean Wilsey’s great memoir as I read, but what makes Stroh’s book so particular are the class contradictions. In movie terms think Ralph Lauren meets Old Milwaukee. Oh, and it’s also a very moving and powerful story of one young woman’s coming of age.
How does a family dynasty die? In her image-rich memoir, ‘Beer Money,’ Frances Stroh asks the question with heroic honesty, from the inside.
Beer Money is one of those memoirs you neither put down nor forget. I’ll remember Frances Stroh’s family—and the beautifully candid, honest and often unforgettable voice she uses to describe them—for a long time. I was very moved by this book.
Of course, the Strohs’ story is fascinating in itself. But what makes this memoir special is Frances Stroh’s clear, brave voice. Free of regret or judgment, she renders even her family’s darkest moments with grace and love. A page-turner in the very best sense.
The quintessential American Dream is a heartwarming rags-to-riches tale, but a good riches-to-rags story can be just as captivating…. Stroh shucked her strangling legacy. With Beer Money , she is on her way to a fresh new writing career—perhaps a riches-to-rags-to-riches story in the making.
How does a family dynasty die? In her image-rich memoir, ‘Beer Money,’ Frances Stroh asks the question with heroic honesty, from the inside.
Fluently written ... Should have appeal beyond strong regional interest.
…[an] absorbing memoir…Beer Money sidesteps a comprehensive account of business mismanagement in favor of intimate family vignettes…Stroh isn't angry or mournful about the family's squandered nobility, which she experienced only as residue. The book offers an ambivalent understanding of a complicated birthright, and none of its drama feels like an airing of dirty laundry.
The New York Times Book Review - Akiva Gottlieb
02/29/2016 Stroh, of the Stroh brewing dynasty, captures the downfall of this empire with candor and power. From 1984 to 1992, Stroh Brewery Company was named in the Forbes 400 list, and the Stroh family possessed the largest private beer fortune in America. Yet, by 1999, Miller and Pabst had bought Stroh’s entire brewing business, plunging the beer label into obscurity, and delivering the final blows to a family already torn apart by divorce, deceit, and an imprudently extravagant lifestyle. With the piercing eye of a visual artist—she devoted a piece of installation art to her family and their memories—Stroh stitches together her and her family’s stories in a series of verbal snapshots. She captures her father’s obsession with collecting and photography, her brother Charlie’s drug use and dealing, her father’s divorce and remarriage to a much younger woman, her mother’s remarriage, her father’s drinking, his decline and death in 2009, and the demise of the brewing empire. Stroh effortlessly and elegantly weaves in her own stories of sitting next to Annie Lennox in a Hare Krishna retreat center, her days at boarding school, her drug use, and her deep love and ambivalent feelings for her father. Stroh’s compelling memoir vividly portrays the aching permanence of loss and the palpability of hope that accompanies starting over. (May)
If the family owned and operated Stroh’s Brewing Co. strived to preserve an image as highbrow folks who nevertheless understood the desires of everyday consumers, Frances Stroh... strips away the facade and reclaims truth.
Stroh’s absorbing memoir suggests that most cocoons are permeable and that privilege is relative.
New York Times Book Review
In Beer Money , Frances Stroh takes us on a fascinating—and often chilling—journey into the world of dark privilege. In prose that is both beautiful and unflinching, Stroh tells a riveting story about the fall of an American family, an American city, and possibly the American Dream itself.
A compelling story of loss, but also of the resiliency needed to forgive the past and forge a new future. The Strohs may have lost the trappings of the American Dream, but Frances Stroh finds something of greater value: compassion for family despite—and because of—their missteps and flaws.
With an artist’s eye for visual detail… her frank and engrossing memoir captures the long decline of the city of Detroit and her sadly dysfunctional family.
Fluently written ... Should have appeal beyond strong regional interest.
2016-02-18 Detroit's decadeslong public death spiral mirrors the steady dissolution of one of the city's most prominent clans: the Stroh family of brewers. Stroh, the golden-haired scion of the once-mighty Midwestern beer kings, remembers growing up under the shadow of material wealth and familial conspicuousness. Uneasy with both the brood and the money, the author sensed early on that not everything was as it seemed to be inside their tony enclave of Grosse Pointe: not the family's beer empire that, for a time, kept the money coming in and certainly not the alcoholic father who appeared more enamored with his vintage collection of guitars and guns than his children. "Once he'd come into my room while I was writing a paper and had slapped me across the face for no apparent reason," writes the author. "Later, he'd come back in, crying and apologizing. He was just drunk, he said." The anxiety that Eric Stroh, frustrated photographer and reluctant beer baron—along with an equally disconnected mother—instilled in the Stroh children portends disaster as assuredly as the decades of economic malfeasance that led to Detroit's fall. Frances, who still managed to distinguish herself as a Fulbright scholar, writes candidly and insightfully about the growing solicitude that grew inside her throughout her life. The assortment of family portraits displaying the dichotomy of smiling faces and secret hurts echoes that suffering in haunting fashion; her brother's tragic trajectory is particularly disquieting and sad. "I was finding that gaining perspective on false constructs was a far simpler feat in art than in life itself," writes Stroh. "In life, the false constructs themselves tended to take over." In the family's comfortable world, the outward appearance of abundance only masked the unsettling truth that unconditional love, much like money, sometimes comes in limited supply. The author's family might have successfully burned through a massive fortune, but they squandered a lot more than that. A sorrowful, eye-opening examination of familial dysfunction.