I haven't read the essay (paywalls) but think I am up to speed now.
What I also find alarming is that Robert Thacker, who wrote a biography of Munro, knew and excluded it. Fremlin was prosecuted the same year the biography was published. He says it was because his book was an analysis of her career. But given themes in some of her stories can be tied to the allegations, it couldn't be that much of an analysis. He could have postponed the publication or added/reedited after Fremlin pleaded guilty.
“I expected there to be repercussions one day,” said Thacker, who added that he even spoke to the author about it. “I don’t want to get into details but it wrecked the family. It was devastating in lots of ways. And it was something that she spoke deeply on.”
Her editor and publisher Douglas Gibson knew in 2005 and continued to publish seven of her works and have her write an intro to his memoirs.
Margaret Atwood said she didn’t know about it until after Fremlin had died and Munro was struggling with dementia. Fremlin died 2013. Munro stopped writing then. She had potentially had dementia from at least 2012.
“The kids probably wondered why she stayed with him,” Atwood said. “All I can add is that she wasn’t very adept at real (practical) life. She wasn’t very interested in cooking or gardening or any of that. She found it an interruption, I expect, rather than a therapy, as some do.”
How did these three people align their decisions/relationship with Munro, knowing she'd chosen to stay with a child abuser?
She won the Nobel in 2013, eight years after the prosecution and the year Fremlin died.
In 2014 her siblings reached out.
They're lucky she wanted anything to do with them to be honest, if at the time of Andrea becoming a Mum herself, everyone still continued playing happy families when Andrea just wanted to protect her own twins and insist on no contact with the abuser. Especially if her own sister had written about living with their mum (written in 2002 and encouraged by Alice) with no mention of her sister's abuse. That's a big thing to miss out.
Maybe the article highlighted more on this and enmeshment.
Andrea Skinner is bloody brave for putting a light on the stigma of silence and family silence. The timing is not nefarious - if Munro had dementia, how could she have made a statement? It doesn't sound like she had a defence - loving someone too much or being learned helpless or blaming the patriarchy are not defences for staying with and standing by a nonce.
Munro ought to be grateful that her daughter didn't say anything sooner and put the kibosh on her Nobel. There were no consequences to her complicity within her lifetime. I wonder whether any other victims of her husband will come forward now.