Like many of her characters, Alice Munro betrayed her own daughter

Devastating that so many people including her mother turned a blind eye to awful criminal acts. It's unfortunate that this isnt the first person who experienced abuse and has seen a failure to protect them / ignore it.

Like many others, I am shocked and saddened by this story. Ultimately though, as a mother, I cannot understand how she could choose her husband over her child. May her daughter find peace.

My mother knew my brother was abusing his own daughter since she was very little!!!! And didn't want to betray him!!!! So glad I didn't ever want to be a mother.

I could never read anything by her now about young girls and women without thinking as I'm reading...knowing underneath it all, that she betrayed everyone, especially her daughter. It invalidates her writing in my opinion, as harsh as that is.

This is personal for me. I told my mother about the abuse I went through with my late father, and she said that she suspected things...but she said nothing. I know that my mother and Munro were a part of that era called the Silent Generation, but this is no excuse for the pain her daughter went through. And I am still considering her books...

Thank you so much for frank & thoughtful discourse from you & the three panelists. Life & the people in it are often very complicated & complex. Sadly, there are many more untold (secrets) like Andrea Skinners in the world. I applaud Andrea for continuing to tell her story as hard as it must be. It's an opportunity for reflection & deeper conversations like you have fostered.

It would have been nice to have a psychologist or social advocate who deals with the trauma of abuse on your panel. This is not an unusual story when it comes to child sexual abuse. This happened to me too. Both my parents knew and did nothing about the boys upstairs.

Art imitates life, life imitates art. AM used the pain of her child for her literary advantage. Her child who was failed by the adults in her life. There is plenty of blame for the cover up of SA to go around, money/fame seems as if that was far more important. I was never an AM fan! my hope moving forward is for all monies to her estate can be used to help heal people who have been abused and perhaps lessen just a little this stain/taint on AM's literary memory.

Maybe it explains why her work always touches the dark side

Thank you so much for this discussion. Where can I find the Paula Todd interview with Alice Munro in 2006?

Read Vandals and see how she monetized her daughter's pain.

Stop with the what about'isms. Watch all the Alice Munro apologists come out of the woodwork. You are ALL complicit.

Great author , terrible mother

Simple way to talk about her - I'm just cancelling her. No tolerance. Bye bye. Not reading her again, not discussing any of her work.

Believe all women, and even children, right? #MeToo, right? All the fans, apologists, academics, and enablers of Alice Munro are complicit. That's why there was so much denial. This isn't news. People just turned a blind eye to it. They didn't want to upset the fandom and status quo. Your hero was a villain. And you were all wrong and didn't get IT. There hasn't been videos about this in social media. And commenting has been not allowed or censored. Double standards and hypocrisy has been historically rampant to the point of conspiracy. Pathetic.

Heard this exchange ...and wondered .... .

Emotional reactions are not required. Criminal actions are. Full stop 🛑

Monster

Defamation laws muddy our waters in many ways, we can't have our cake and eat it too.

I'm struck by how soft & considerate everyone's language is around this revelation. When you consider the continued force of cancel culture and how CBC is such a huge player in liberal activism, the softness stands out even more. If this was a male writer, especially one with her alleged status in Canadian culture, it would be wildly different. This would be a scandal worthy national news. People would be demanding legal action against the editor, publisher, etc. Sex crimes are treated very differently when it's a woman who perpetuates the abuse. This interview was weird.😢