The daughter of Canadian literary icon Alice Munro has accused the late producer of ignoring childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather.
Just weeks after the Nobel laureate’s death at age 92, his youngest daughter Andrea Skinner revealed allegations against her late stepfather Gerald Fremlin in a harrowing essay for the Toronto Star.
The Toronto Star reports that Skinner, now 58, was with police over abuse in 2005, when Fremlin was 80.
Fremlin, a cartographer, received a dubious sentence and two years’ probation – something Munro chose to live with until his death in 2013.
Skinner said she wanted ‘the story, my story,’ to be part of the stories that people tell about my mother… I never wanted to see another interview, biography or event that told the truth. Don’t fight with. ‘What happened to me, and the fact that my mother, faced with the reality of what happened, chose to stay with and protect my abuser.’
The daughter of literary icon Alice Munro says she was sexually abused by her stepfather when she was 9 years old — and her mother came to terms with it when she realized it.
Just weeks after the Nobel laureate died at the age of 92, Munro’s daughter Andrea Skinner revealed allegations against her late stepfather Gerald Fremlin in a harrowing essay.
In her essay, Skinner wrote that Fremlin began sexually abusing her in 1976, when she was 9 years old and he was 50.
She said the first sexual assault occurred during a conversation at Munro and Fremlin’s home in Ontario, after which Fremlin climbed onto the mattress on which she was sleeping.
Skinner said she told her stepmother, who told her father, who did not confront Monroe.
Over the years, Skinner says Gremlin often opened up to her, telling her about her mother’s sexual desires, and ‘his crushes on the women he adored locally.’
‘On the date, I didn’t know it was abuse. ‘I thought I was doing a good job of stopping the abuse by deflecting my approach and ignoring her stories,’ Skinner wrote.
Skinner said Gremlin lost interest as she entered adolescence, although she continued to suffer the aftereffects of the abuse and suffered from bulimia, insomnia, and migraines.
When Monroe responded to the story of a woman who committed suicide after being sexually assaulted by her stepfather, Skinner decided to tell his mother the truth.
Skinner, who is depicted as a child, wrote that Fremlin began sexually abusing her in 1976, when she was 9 and he was 50.
Skinner’s essay has taken the literary world by storm, where Munro has been praised for improvising the latest short story and known for exploring themes such as sex and injury.
Skinner wrote a letter describing the abuse, and said that Monroe ‘reacted exactly as I had feared, as if she had realized the infidelity.’
He wrote, ‘Because it turned out that despite my sympathy for a fictional character, my mother had false cognate feelings for me.’
Skinner said of his mother: ‘She said she was “told too late”… (that) she loved him very much, and that if I could get her to deny her personal desires, to make sacrifices for her, If we had expectations then our misogynistic culture was responsible for this. Correct the shortcomings of your child and peers.
‘She was adamant that whatever happened was between me and my stepfather. It had nothing to do with him.
The closest Monroe reportedly got was that she left her marital home and moved into a condominium she owned. Meanwhile Fremlin wrote letters to the public in which he acknowledged the abuse but blamed Skinner, described her as a ‘homewrecker’ and accused him of going into her bedroom ‘for sexual advances’.
Skinner says that Fremlin wrote in a letter: ‘If the worst comes to the worst I intend to move the country… I will supply a number of photographs for the newspaper, some of which will be taken from my cabin at Ottawa. Have been taken in. Which is amazing… one of Andrea in my underwear shorts.
However Munro moved to Fremlin again and lived with him until his death.
Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, receives the Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in 2013, through her daughter Jenny Munro (left).
Skinner says she never got along well with her mother, but now has a great relationship with her siblings Andrew, Jenny and Sheila.
Skinner’s essay has rocked the literary world, where Munro is praised for perfecting the latest short story and known for exploring themes such as sex and injury.
The characters in Munro’s stories are often women and girls who lead apparently extraordinary lives, but struggle with everything from sexual abuse and stifling marriages to repressed love and the pangs of aging.
Canadian pamphleteer essayist and author Michelle Saica wrote on Is quick to mention that he never liked her writing.
‘It is difficult to accept the fact that people who create excellent art are capable of committing monstrous acts.’
Meanwhile, the American novelist and author Brandon Taylor wrote: I am in awe of her courage… (her description) ‘is terrifying in my view because I admit so much about my story and history to the joy of hers. ‘
Munro died in May, having suffered from dementia for less than a decade.