Alice Munro’s family kept a terrible secret for decades. Now they want the world to know
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2024-07-10に共有
A chilling revelation has surfaced almost a month after the death of Canada’s literary giant, Alice Munro. Andrea Skinner — who is Munro’s daughter — has revealed in the Toronto Star that her stepfather Gerald Fremlin sexually abused her when she was nine years old. She was only able to tell her mother in a letter when she was in her 20s. Her mother chose to remain with Fremlin, even after discovering the abuse. For nearly five decades a conspiracy of silence has loomed over the family — casting a chill over the legacy of Canada’s Nobel laureate — and raising questions about how society appears to view and protect its icons while uncomfortable truths and complicit silence lurks just beneath the surface. More than anything else, this is the story of a survivor and her courage to speak out so others might follow.
A warning that his episode contains descriptions of child sexual abuse and might be triggering. Please take care while listening.
コメント (21)
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Let this be a warning to mothers that betray their children so cruelly.
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Strip away all the accolades and this is a story of a mother who did not support her daughter.
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I can’t think of anything lower than this for a mother. Heinous.
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They didn’t want to upset the money cart. So they sacrificed a nine year old.
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Every adult failed little Andrea. According to her, when Munro found out, she mentioned her husband had other "children's friends. So, her complicity was beyond Andrea's abuse.
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Public scammed by media refusing to cover this years ago and by Munro staying silent when she found out. Alice Munro is now a dirty word as is the media. How many other children became victims of this pedophile as a result??? Kudos to Andrea for her courage in speaking up and trying to protect other children.
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My children were abused by someone we loved at the time. When we found out we immediately believed our children and cut off all contact except to confront the abuser and to stop any other children from being abused.
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It Happened to me. My mother considered me a threat and encouraged me to go away like to another country. At the age of 20 years old the stepfather kicked me out as I didn't do what he wanted me to do. My life has been a constant struggle without any family support. I tried to make a new life in Australia but it is still a struggle up until now at the age of 80 years old. I strongly wanted to ended it many times it but been a Christian it goes against my Christian values. I never saw my mother for forty years until she died. She could have a lovely daughter in her life but she prefered this monster her husband. When she died the tears came down for three months not because she died but because I missed having mother and she missed having a loving daughter.
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I have 3 degrees in literature and we were never told about any of the creepy lives of the authors. It wasn't until decades later that their personal lives were exposed.
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Concentric circles of secrecy. Adjacent, overlapping...stacks & venn diagrams of circles of secrecy. Her brother told, her step-Mom told...& then everyone shuttered the windows & turned the tv up louder. She was a child & her whole family, including her step-Dad & Mom, abandoned her & left her to deal with that abandonment & how it collided with the sexual abuse. Very brave to come forward, to tell the truth, to let other survivors know we're not alone. The millions & millions of us....we're not alone. Thank you, Andrea Skinner 🌿
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I know a number of survivors who’ve found some healing through The Gatehouse. Glad to learn she was able to reconnect with her siblings. All of the adults involved failed to protect a child and this is absolutely despicable.
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22:14 🧐 The media is STILL failing Andrea by saying things like this will not negatively affect how Alice Munro will be read but instead sharpen it, ESPECIALLY in this context. 😟 When are people going to get that when someone enables an abuser that is itself abusive? Supporting an abuser invalidates, devalues, and abandons the survivor, and implicitly sanctions their mistreatment. Many survivors say it is MORE painful than the original abuse. You don't get to choose a p---phile over your own daughter and use her pain as "material" (22:13 🤮) and stay on MY bookshelf. There's no amount of artistic "genius" that can remove the stench of such cruelty, and there are PLENTY of great artists to read, watch, and listen to whose sales aren't an implicit repudiation of survivors of abuse. Love and solidarity to Andrea, and to all survivors
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everyone had to die in order for Andrea to be free.
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He slept with 9 year old the same year that he married her 45 year old mother. But father's silence?!
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Evil! Terribly tragic for Andrea. They made her feel like a "ghost" of sexual abuse. Shame on those adults!
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the devastating irony - Munro was such a keen observer of human nature And clearly an absolute sh!t practitioner of it
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Abuse is abuse
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People will see Munro with different eyes.
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There is no greater or more damaging betrayal in this world than a mother betraying her child. Choosing your relationship with a man who has abused your child over that child is depraved and despicable, period. The damage done by the abuse can be dealt with and managed, but the damage done by your mother betraying you is profound, deep-rooted and lifelong. You are being shown at a young age that you cannot trust or depend on the one person in the world that should love and protect you. It is terrifying psychologically, because if that person can do such a thing to you, what does it say about what the rest of the world might do to you? The emotional and psychological terror it creates lives in your soul and can affect you all through your life. I have absolutely no sympathy for a woman who chooses to do that to her child. My sympathy goes to the child who was betrayed and abandoned, who found the courage to speak out, and has shown such inner strength and resilience. May all the love and good things come to her - she's earned it. As for the literary legacy of Alice Munro, I'm not a believer in judging art by the personal life or qualities of the artist, but I think it's fitting in this case that her work will probably now forever be read with the light of what we know she did shining on it. Choices have consequences.
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The towns of Wingham and Clinton need to be held to account. Smalltown Ontario residents know everything especially to do with children. There are No secrets in small towns.
