Alice Munro
By: Matthew Barrett
Matthew Barrett
Graphic Illustrator
Matthew Barrett is an illustrator and historian who specializes in the creation of graphic histories and comics that visualize fascinating stories of the past. He received a PhD in history from Queen’s University and was a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Canadian War Museum. He is the author of Scandalous Conduct: Canadian Officer Courts Martial, 1914–45, and is the co-author and illustrator of Through Their Eyes: A Graphic History of Hill 70 and the First World War.
Content Addition – Information Learned
CONTENT WARNING: The content of this addition discusses topics of sexual abuse towards children. This information is disturbing and readers should proceed with caution.
In July 2024, Alice Munro’s youngest daughter, Andrea Skinner, published an article in the Toronto Star revealing that she had been sexually abused as a nine year old in the mid-1970s by Munro’s husband, Skinner’s stepfather, Gerald Fremlin.
In her article, Skinner writes that Fremlin continued to make sexual advances toward her until she was a teenager. Skinner told her stepbrother and stepmother about the abuse, who then informed her father. Her father told the family not to reveal the abuse to Munro.
In 1992, Skinner did tell her mother about the sexual abuse. Munro reacted with blame toward Skinner, and did not leave Fremlin. The abuse became an open secret in their family for decades.
In 2005, Skinner reported the abuse to police, which was corroborated by her step siblings. Fremlin pleaded guilty to a charge of indecent assault and was sentenced to two years probation. Munro stayed married to Fremlin until his death in 2013. Around 2002, Skinner ended her relationship with Munro, and they did not reconcile before Munro’s death in May 2024.
To read more about these revelations through an open access source, visit the Canadian Encyclopedia.
This original illustrated microhistory was published in June 2022. Updated note added in July 2024.