Her husband sexually abused her daughter from age nine, but she refused to leave him and blamed the victim. Now a horrifying conspiracy of silence is being unmasked...

With her searingly honorable stories astir puerility traumas, intersexual awakenings and dull, lifeless marriages, fewer could constitute astir quality quality and relationships arsenic powerfully arsenic Alice Munro.

But until her decease successful May, aged 92, less still knew that nan victor of nan Nobel Prize for Literature harboured a acheronian concealed that ripped isolated her ain family.

Just 2 months aft she was feted successful obituaries arsenic 1 of nan top short communicative writers, nan literate star’s girl has horrified Munro’s galore admirers by revealing she was sexually abused by her stepfather from nan property of nine.

Worse — overmuch worse, for a writer acclaimed for penning truthful acutely and sympathetically astir relationships betwixt mothers and daughters — Munro chose to enactment pinch her paedophile hubby moreover aft he was convicted of his crimes, because she ‘loved him excessively much’.

Andrea Robin Skinner, 58, says nan truth was smothered for decades by not only her family but — because of her mother’s fame — ‘many influential people’ who knew thing of what had happened but said nothing. On Facebook yesterday, Andrea said nan ‘focus of my communicative is nan threat of silence’.

Munro’s 2nd husband, cartographer Gerald Fremlin, first sexually assaulted Andrea 1 nighttime successful 1976 astatine her Canadian mother’s location successful Ontario, wherever she would walk her summertime holidays arsenic portion of a joint-custody statement pinch Andrea’s father.

Fremlin ‘climbed into nan furniture wherever I was sleeping and sexually assaulted me. I was 9 years old.’

D escribing herself arsenic a erstwhile ‘happy child’, she recalled: ‘The adjacent morning, I couldn’t get retired of bed. I’d woken up pinch my first migraine, which developed complete nan years into a chronic, debilitating information that continues to this day.’

She recalls Fremlin, past successful his 50s, driving her to nan airdrome erstwhile nan clip came for her to return to her father, Jim Munro, successful Victoria, British Columbia.

‘In nan car, he asked maine to play a crippled called “show me”. When I said no, he made maine show him astir my “sex life”, prying maine for specifications of guiltless games I played pinch different children. Then he told maine astir his activity life.’

Andrea, nan youngest of Alice Munro’s 3 daughters (a 4th died soon aft birth), told her stepmother, Carole, astir nan abuse. Carole alerted nan girl’s father. Jim, a bookshop proprietor who’d joined Alice successful 1951 but separated from her successful 1974, didn’t show his erstwhile wife.

He besides instructed Andrea’s overmuch older sisters, Sheila and Jenny, to support it concealed from their mother, saying that nan needs of nan feted writer ‘were greater than his child’s needs’.

All of them, Jenny now admits, were intimidated by Munro’s increasing literate fame.

Andrea besides feared that her mother ‘would blasted maine if she ever recovered out’ because she was already paranoid that Fremlin favoured her girl complete her.

It meant that Andrea was subjected to years of further intersexual maltreatment erstwhile she returned to her mother’s location each summer.

Fremlin, who’d erstwhile been an aspiring poet, many times exposed himself to her, masturbated successful beforehand of her and propositioned her.

‘When I was unsocial pinch Fremlin, he made lewd jokes, exposed himself during car rides, told maine astir nan small girls successful nan neighbourhood he liked, and described my mother’s intersexual needs,’ she wrote successful nan Toronto Star this month.

Alice Munro’s behaviour was, successful its ain way, conscionable arsenic horrifying arsenic Fremlin’s. When Andrea was 11, erstwhile friends of Fremlin’s told Alice that he’d exposed himself to their 14-year-old daughter.

When Munro challenged him he denied it, and erstwhile asked astir Andrea, he ‘reassured her that I was not his type,’ she says.

‘In beforehand of my mother, he told maine that galore cultures successful nan past weren’t arsenic “prudish” arsenic ours, and it utilized to beryllium considered normal for children to study astir activity by engaging successful activity pinch adults.

‘My mother said nothing. I looked astatine nan floor, acrophobic she mightiness spot my look turning red.’

As she entered her teens, Andrea nary longer held nan aforesaid allure for Fremlin but her ordeal near her suffering from bulimia, insomnia and migraines, and she struggled astatine university.

In 1992, Andrea, past 25, collapsed nan ‘conspiracy of silence’ wrong nan family aft Alice Munro had mentioned to her a communicative she’d publication astir a woman who commits termination aft being sexually abused by her stepfather.

Munro asked her why she thought nan mediocre woman didn’t show her mother. A period later, Andrea wrote to her mother revealing what had happened to her arsenic a child.

As she ever did, says her daughter, Munro twisted nan ungraded astir truthful that she became nan victim, accusing her first hubby of keeping nan maltreatment concealed to humiliate her, but past admitted that Fremlin had confessed to her astir having ‘friendships’ pinch children, leaving her emotion ‘betrayed’.

She reacted ‘as if she had learned of an infidelity’.

Munro ‘was overwhelmed by her consciousness of wounded to herself,’ Andrea recalls. ‘Did she realise she was speaking to a unfortunate — that I was her child? If she did, I couldn’t consciousness it.’

Fremlin, meanwhile, threatened to termination Andrea if she went to nan police. He wrote to her begetter and step-mother, claiming she’d been a nine-year-old ‘home wrecker’, a ‘Lolita’ who had been intent connected ‘sexual adventure’.

Astonishingly, he apologised not for abusing a woman but for being ‘unfaithful’ to Munro.

Despite everything, aft a little separation, Munro returned to Fremlin, whom she’d first met astatine assemblage and joined successful 1976, and stayed pinch him until he died successful 2013.

‘She said that she had been “told excessively late”,’ says Andrea, that ‘she loved him excessively much, and that our misogynistic civilization was to blasted if I expected her to contradict her ain needs, sacrifice for her children, and dress up for nan failings of men. She was adamant that immoderate had happened was betwixt maine and my stepfather. It had thing to do pinch her.’

In 2002, Andrea — who’d go a yoga coach and is now a therapist moving pinch kid maltreatment victims — had twins and told her mother that Fremlin could ne'er travel adjacent them. When Munro complained that it would beryllium a ‘terrible inconvenience for her’ arsenic she couldn’t drive, Andrea ‘exploded’ and refused to person thing much to do pinch her.

However, nan literate world continued to fawn complete her and, 2 years later, Andrea couldn’t suffer successful soundlessness immoderate longer erstwhile Munro told a newspaper interviewer really Fremlin was nan awesome emotion of her life and she was truthful fortunate to person him, adding that she had a ‘close relationship’ pinch each of her children.

Andrea went to nan constabulary — equipped pinch nan compromising letters Fremlin had sent. Upon his arrest, Munro yelled successful fury that Andrea was a liar, according to a constabulary detective. In 2005, he admitted indecently assaulting her but, fixed he was 80, sewage disconnected pinch 2 years’ probation and was banned from immoderate interaction pinch children nether 14 for 2 years. The lawsuit attracted adjacent to nary media attention.

So who had known of Alice Munro’s appalling secret?

‘Everybody,’ says Andrea’s step-mother Carole. She recounted being astatine a meal statement pinch a journalist who asked her, ‘Is it true?’ to which she replied that it was.

Both Munro’s patient and acclaimed biographer admit they’ve known since 2005 — nan latter, Robert Thacker, near it retired arsenic he ‘viewed it arsenic a backstage matter’ and saw Fremlin arsenic nan offender, not Munro.

Her friend Margaret Atwood, celebrated writer of A Handmaid’s Tale, insists she only heard nan ‘horrifying’ specifications very recently. ‘Why did she stay? Search me,’ she says. ‘I deliberation they were from a procreation and spot that shovelled things nether nan carpet.’

She added: ‘You realise you didn’t cognize who you thought you knew.’

As nan literate world rushes to ‘re-evaluate’ a revered writer, a Canadian assemblage and her location municipality are reconsidering their memorials to Alice Munro. Many fans are simply mulling complete whether they tin publication her again.

And truthful different sanction has been added to a agelong database successful nan endless statement complete whether it really is acceptable to admit awesome creation while condemning its flawed creator.