Frances Stroh

Ms. Stroh has taken the rare step, in the secretive world of America’s wealthiest, of going public with her family’s downward spiral in a remarkably intimate book, “Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss.” In revealing detail, she documents a trifecta of misfortunes, some of them self-inflicted: the unraveling of her immediate family, shaken by alcohol and drug abuse; the collapse of her family’s brewing empire; and the fall of Detroit, hometown of Stroh’s beer. Today, Ms. Stroh is a successful businesswoman. Now 50, she lives in San Francisco, and took a relatively modest inheritance of about $200,000 in stocks from her mother and made savvy investments in tech companies and real estate. As a small-time developer and landlord, she is able to live independently in one of the nation’s most expensive cities. She is doing well enough that she is investing back in Detroit, but in a way that will pay a different type of dividend. She donated half of the advance and 10 percent of the book sale proceeds from “Beer Money” to 826michigan, a nonprofit organization that tutors school-age children in writing.