Alice Munro
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Anonymous
My mother was in the same room for 98% of the verbal and physical abuse I suffered as a child at the mouth and hands of my father and his mini me bully abuser my elder brother. I have to believe, having heard him sexually assaulting her when he came home drunk many times, that she also knew what likely was happening when he came home drunk and climbed into my toddler bed to read me The Saggy Baggy Elephant - and to show the toddler me what an elephant’s trunk looks like. I grew up to be a domestic violence advocate, an advocate for abused kids and later a prosecutor. The sick and sad truth is that a great many women choose their husband or boyfriend or lover over their children, especially over vulnerable daughters. We see it all the time in the criminal justice system, it would make the average person sick but the sad truth is that it’s happening in many average families too. Madeline Soto’s mother encouraged her adult boyfriend to sleep in the same bed as her pre teen daughter, in a different room from the mother. For years he raped poor Madeline and then on the day she became a teenager, he murdered her. It’s just one story; there are thousands and thousands more. |
Anonymous
I forgot to say that a few years back when Munro won the Nobel prize I bought a few of her collections on kindle and they’ve been on my ‘to read’ list - I’m now not going to read them, ever. I don’t care how brilliant her writing has been claimed to be - there are many gifted women writers and too little time for reading these days. I do intend to send a card to Andrea Skinner, though. I want her to know she’s a hero to the abused girls still living in far too many adult women.. |
Anonymous
Yes exactly. I wish she had gone public with this before her stepdad and mom died though. |
Anonymous
| Since her husband was convicted, why wasn't that ever made public by the press? It seems like an egregious oversight by journalists, as it's not like he has a common name. Why didn't any of the authors of articles following her Nobel Prize or death include this? |
Anonymous
She did. She went to the cops as an adult. He was charged and pled guilty. But no one wanted to talk about it. |
Anonymous
I am yet another poster who experienced something similar. Sending you both hugs and good thoughts today. |
Anonymous
Thank you for your advocacy and I am sorry for what you went through as a child. |
Anonymous
I wish people had listened to her, because she tried! https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/07/09/alice-munro-colleagues-abuse/ |
Anonymous
Because there is a culture of silence around child sexual abuse. Alice Munro's biographer knew about it but didn't publish it because "it wasn't that kind of book... I wasn’t writing a tell-all biography. And I’ve lived long enough to know that stuff happens in families that they don’t want to talk about and that they want to keep in families." https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/07/09/alice-munro-colleagues-abuse/ |
Anonymous
Someone else had already linked that one post above yours. Appalling that they ignored it. Especially the biographer, imho. |
Anonymous
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I'm not a fan of cancelling things, but this is a case where the artist had full knowledge of a crime against her own child, and not only chose to ignore it, but also chose to use it as fodder for her art. Munro wrote a story about a wife whose husband is a child molester and the trace to her own life is so clear. But she clearly didn't write it to process things in advance of dumping him and working to help her child heal; she wrote it...why, exactly, I can't know, but she used her daughter's trauma for story fodder. While she also knowingly turned away from helping her own child. And looked away from the knowledge that her husband had "friendships" -- Munro's own word -- with other children too. I don't see how anyone could read her writing now except with profoundest disgust and anger that such vaunted, lauded talent was paired with complete, bone-deep amorality. Yes, we're often told we should separate art from artist, but the fact that she used the idea of a wife's response to a child molester husband in even a single story -- that seems so heartless and utterly dissociated from her child's real-world pain. It's just vile. |
Anonymous
This is so gross. Who is the "they" that he is referring to? Surely not the victim (Munro's daughter) who actually WENT TO HIM to tell him about the abuse before his book was published. She quite obviously didn't want to keep it in the family. The "they" that wanted to hide it was the abuser and his wife. And he honored the abuser's wishes above that of the victim. |
Anonymous
I was wondering the same thing. Isnt there some kind of law that mandates a parent has to report the abuse of their kid by another adult? what the hell was the dad thinking went he sent her back every summer? I also don't understand how the conviction is 2005 of the stepdad didn't make more news? that would be public so how was it still so covered up for another 2 decades outside the family. The siblings sound terrible too, they were all estranged from Andrea until the mom dies and now its a lot of "we are focused on helping our sister"-- Was alice munroe financially supporting all these deadbeats? including the ex husband? My heart breaks for andrew, how do you get past the assaults themselves but also knowing you own mother and father have zero interest in protecting you from a monster. |
Anonymous
Wouldn't his conviction been public? that is what I don't get. That had to make the papers somewhere, even just locally? No one outside the family knew? The committee for Nobel doesn't do background research? |
Anonymous
and the father specifically told his kids NOT to say anything to the mother or step dad. Then willingly sent his kid back every summer for several more years. |