Alice Munro’s daughter says Munro knew about sexual harassment by her stepfather

**Warning: The following story contains information about the sexual abuse of a child

The daughter of award-winning Canadian short story writer and Wingham native Alice Munro reveals to the world that she was sexually abused by her stepfather and that her mother knew about the abuse and stayed with her husband.

Andrea Robin Skinner detailed the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother’s second husband in an article in the Toronto Star. Skinner wrote that during her childhood, she lived with her father, Munro’s first husband James Munro, in BC for the entire school year and spent summers with her mother and stepfather Gerald Fremlin in Clinton.

Skinner told the Star that she was abused during these visits. She stated that it began in 1976, when she was only nine years old. Her mother had left and Fremlin would get into bed with her and touch her sexually. She said that over the following years, until she was a teenager, he offered her sex, exposed himself and masturbated in front of her.

Skinner did not tell her mother about the abuse until 1992. She wrote her a letter detailing what Fremlin had done. Munro chose to stay with her second husband despite this accusation from her daughter.

According to the Star, although abuse in the Munro family was an open secret, Skinner did not go to police until 2005. At the age of 80, Fremlin pleaded guilty to indecent assault in a Goderich courtroom. He received a suspended sentence and two years’ probation for the crime. Fremlin died in 2013.

Munro became estranged from Skinner. She died in May at the age of 92.

Skinner said she wanted to bring the truth to light, not to diminish her mother’s work, but so that Canadians could get a full picture of the woman she was.

Munro, a Nobel Prize-winning author, wrote acclaimed stories including “Lives of Girls and Women,” “Dance of the Happy Shades” and “Who Do You Think You Are?”