The Brewers Big Horses

Little Sara Bolster loved the great shining horses that drew the Henkel brewery wagon through the streets of Detroit in the 1880s. Those horses came to signify her fate, for she married the Henkel son and later, as a widow, took over the business. Sara’s struggle against the intolerance and hypocrisy of family and friends who disapproved of a woman running a brewery and opening a beer garden makes her a standout among the characters of Mildred Walker. The Brewers’ Big Horses recreates the manners and traditions of Germans in America as Prohibition gets up steam.

This biography of the author of 13 celebrated novels is also Hugo's search for the writing life of a mother known to her children as a socially correct middle-class doctor's wife rather than as the ambitious novelist she was as well. 14 photos.