Alice Munro's daughter and the loneliness of abuse

Alice Munro's daughter, Andrea Robin Skinner, narrates the ordeal of being raped in her childhood in this disturbing piece. Munro is a Canadian author who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2013. The author's complicity in her daughter's abuse has sent shock waves among the literary community. 

When she was only nine, Andrea was sexually assaulted by her stepfather, Gerald Fremlin. While this disgusting act itself is enough to shock anyone, I was more pained to read that no one came forward to help the child. While her mother, Alice Munro, responded with astonishing narcissism, her father and stepmother too kept mum. A defenceless child was left at the mercy of a monster. She started suffering from bulimia, insomnia and migraines. "By the time I was 25, I couldn’t picture a future for myself," she wrote.

When Andrea finally mustered the courage to tell her mother, Alice Munro, about the abuse, the author had said that "Our misogynistic culture is to blame if you expect me to deny my own needs, sacrifice for my children, and make up for the failings of men." She not only refused to be held accountable in any way, but also remained with the abuser till he died.

Can you imagine Andrea's feeling of isolation when she was abandoned by both her primary caregivers? The well-being of a child is the foremost and the most sacred duty of parents. It means that the parents have to make it their life's mission to ensure the mental, emotional and physical safety of the child they have brought into this world. 

Abuse survivors are often asked why they did not reach out to people earlier, or why they did not seek help. In most of the cases, the truth is that the survivor does try to speak about her/his ordeal, but it's never heard. Even if Alice Munro had not responded the way she did, the very action of her remaining quiet and choosing to go back to her husband would have convinced the survivor that she had been abandoned.

Abuse is a very isolating experience. The survivor is not only expected to keep quiet, but also expected to resign to her fate accepting that the burden is only hers to bear. In Alice Munro's case, her fame brought her immunity to being held accountable. People often take the side of the rich and influential, even if it means snuffing out the voice of a victim of a heinous crime. While the stepfather was the abuser, Andrea's mother, father and her stepmother were the enablers. The child was left to figure out the unfairness of it all alone.