The youngest daughter of celebrated Canadian author Alice Munro has opened up about sexual abuse by her stepfather and the deep hurt she felt when her mother chose to support her husband instead of her child.
In a first-person essay published in The Toronto Star on Sunday, Andrea Robin Skinner described how the Nobel Prize-winning short story writer remained in her marriage to second husband Gerald Fremlin even after she learned of the abuse.
In the essay, Skinner said she opted to tell her story so Canadians could have a more nuanced picture of the Nobel laureate, who was revered as a literary icon long before her death in May.
“I … wanted this story, my story, to become part of the stories people tell about my mother,” she wrote. “I never wanted to see another interview, biography or event that didn’t wrestle with the reality of what had happened to me, and with the fact that my mother, confronted with the truth of what had happened, chose to stay with, and protect, my abuser.”
GRAPHIC WARNING: The following details may disturb some readers.
Skinner wrote in the Star that the abuse began in 1976 when she was nine and visiting her mother in Ontario for the summer. She spent most of the year on Vancouver Island with her father. She wrote that Fremlin climbed into the bed where she was sleeping and initiated sexual contact while Munro was out of the house.
On the final day of her visit, she said Fremlin began asking for details about her sex life and sharing aspects of his own while driving her to the airport.
Skinner said she initially told her father and stepbrother what had happened, but neither she nor her father informed Munro right away.
She said Fremlin continued to expose himself to her and proposition her for sex until he lost interest when she reached her teens.
Skinner said she experienced “private pain” for many years due to Fremlin’s predatory behaviour, suffering from bulimia, insomnia and migraines, and dropping out of an international development program at the University of Toronto.
In her 20s, Skinner wrote Munro a letter detailing Fremlin’s abuse, but she said she received no sympathy from her mother.
“I … was overwhelmed by her sense of injury to herself,” Skinner wrote. “She believed my father had made us keep the secret in order to humiliate her. She then told me about other children Fremlin had ‘friendships’ with, emphasizing her own sense that she, personally, had been betrayed. Did she realize she was speaking to a victim, and that I was her child? If she did, I couldn’t feel it.”
Munro remained with Fremlin until he died in 2013. Munro said she had been “told too late” about the abuse, that she loved him too much to leave him and that she couldn’t be expected to “deny her own needs,” Skinner wrote.
She reported the abuse to police in 2005, and Fremlin ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of indecent assault.
She said the abuse she suffered remained an open secret in the Munro family for years and for a time led to estrangement from her entire family.
Skinner, now a meditation and mindfulness teacher, said she has since reconciled with her siblings, but never with her mother.
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• Statement from Munro's Books about the story of Andrea Robin Skinner
Munro’s Books unequivocally supports Andrea Robin Skinner as she publicly shares her story of her sexual abuse as a child. Learning the details of Andrea’s experience has been heartbreaking for all of us here at Munro’s Books. Along with so many readers and writers, we will need time to absorb this news and the impact it may have on the legacy of Alice Munro, whose work and ties to the store we have previously celebrated. It is important to respect Andrea’s choices over how her story is shared more widely. While the bookstore is inextricably linked with Jim and Alice Munro, we have been independently owned since 2014. As such, we are not able to speak on behalf of the Munro family. This story is Andrea’s to tell, and we will not be commenting further at this time.
• Statement from the Munro family
We would like to thank the owners and staff of Munro’s Books for being so supportive as Andrea shares her story of childhood sexual abuse, and journey of healing. Alice and Jim Munro played significant roles in the store’s identity. By acknowledging and honouring Andrea’s truth, and being very clear about their wish to end the legacy of silence, the current store owners have become part of our family’s healing, and are modelling a truly positive response to disclosures like Andrea’s. We wholly support the owners and staff of Munro’s Books as they chart a new future, and respectfully request that they not be asked or expected to answer questions about the Munro family.
— Andrea, Andrew, Jenny, Sheila
