When the Nobel Prize-winning Canadian author Alice Munro died in May at age 92, her many admirers paid tribute to the subtle construction of her short stories, which often involved the gradual unveiling of a terrible revelation.
Andrea Robin Skinner, one of Munro’s daughters, published an essay in the Toronto Star on Sunday that brought to light a long-held secret in the author’s own family: Munro’s husband, geographer Gerald Fremlin, had sexually abused Skinner starting in 1976, when she was 9. Munro learned of the abuse when Skinner wrote to her about it 16 years later, and the author ultimately decided to stay with Fremlin afterward. Fremlin wrote letters to the Munro family, admitting to the abuse in graphic detail and blaming Skinner, describing her as a “homewrecker.” Skinner’s essay in the Star was accompanied by an article by two reporters at the paper.
Munro remained married to Fremlin until his death in 2013. “She was adamant that whatever had happened was between me and my stepfather,” Skinner wrote. “It had nothing to do with her.”
In the essay, Skinner described the initial sexual assault, which occurred during a 1976 visit to her mother and stepfather. During subsequent visits, Fremlin spoke lewdly to her, exposed himself and masturbated in front of her. Skinner struggled with bulimia, migraines and insomnia throughout her youth, and at age 25 she divulged the abuse to her mother.
When she next spoke to her mother, Skinner wrote, Munro focused on her own sense of injury and seemed “incredulous” that Skinner described being hurt by the abuse.Munro told Skinner about “other children Fremlin had ‘friendships’ with, emphasizing her own sense that she, personally, had been betrayed.”
Other members of the family knew about some aspect of the abuse. Soon after the initial assault, Skinner told her stepmother, who informed Skinner’s father, Jim Munro. Jim Munro did not inform his ex-wife, a choice that “relieved” Skinner at first, she wrote. Later, though, his “inability to take swift and decisive action to protect me also left me feeling that I no longer truly belonged in either home. I was alone.”
Skinner became estranged from the family in 2002, after telling Munro she would not allow Fremlin near her children. After reading a 2004 newspaper feature in which Munro spoke glowingly about her marriage, Skinner wrote, she decided she could no longer keep the abuse a family secret. She contacted Ontario police and shared Fremlin’s letters. He was charged for indecent assault, and pleaded guilty, in 2005. Skinner hoped that this would force the public to confront her experience, but “my mother’s fame meant the silence continued.”
The secrecy spread beyond the family: Canadian academic Robert Thacker told the Globe and Mail that Skinner had written to him about her experiences as his book “Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives” went to press in 2005. Thacker decided not to act on the information: “I knew about the discord within the family and no, I wasn’t going to do anything to make a bad situation worse.” He also said he had spoken with Munro about the abuse, but he did not elaborate on those conversations.
“Many influential people came to know something of my story yet continued to support, and add to, a narrative they knew was false,” Skinner wrote in her essay.
Skinner and her siblings reconnected in 2014, as they began to talk more openly about the dynamics that had prevented them from discussing the abuse with one another or understanding its severity. “We were so loyal to our mother that sometimes we were almost pitted against each other,” her sister told Toronto Star reporters.
