Colleagues of writer Alice Munro say they know about abuse in her family

“I knew this day was coming,” Thacker told The Washington Post on Monday, later adding, “I knew it was going to come out, and I knew I was going to have conversations like this.”

In an opinion piece published in the Toronto Star on Sunday, Skinner described her experiences and Munro’s unsympathetic reaction when Skinner informed her of the abuse in 1992. An article by two reporters at the newspaper described how Fremlin had written letters admitting the abuse and pleaded guilty to indecent assault in 2005. Munro remained married to Fremlin, who died in 2013.

The story shocked much of the literary world and sparked glowing tributes to Munro, who died in May at the age of 92.

“I didn’t learn the details until everyone else did, despite receiving tips just before last weekend. Terrifying,” Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood said in an email to The Post.

However, some were not surprised by the revelations.

“As the Canadian editor and publisher of Alice, I was aware that Alice and Andrea had been estranged for several years,” Douglas Gibson wrote in an email in response to a Post interview request. “The stakes became clear in 2005 when Gerry Fremlin’s shameful role was fully exposed, but I have nothing to add or further comment to make on this tragic family story.”

Thacker said Skinner wrote to him about her experiences in 2005, after she contacted police about Fremlin and Thacker’s book went to press. He decided not to act on the information.

“She was obviously hoping – or at least she was hoping at the time – that I would go public,” he told The Post on Monday. “I wasn’t ready to do that. And the reason for that was because it wasn’t that kind of book. I didn’t write a tell-all. And I’ve lived long enough to know that things happen in families that you don’t want to talk about and you want to keep in the family.”

Thacker said he and Munro discussed the matter in 2008 when they met for an interview at a restaurant. Munro asked him to turn off his recording device. He declined to describe the conversation in detail but said Munro told him she had told Munro about the abuse in 1992, when Skinner was 25. Munro said she left Fremlin for a time and eventually decided to return.

“In a case like this, I was not prepared to investigate,” Thacker said, adding later: “She used the term ‘devastated.’ And she Was devastated. It was nothing she had done. It was something He did.”

According to Thacker, it was generally believed that for her 1993 story “Vandals,” she drew on events in her life, about a woman who represses the knowledge that her partner sexually abused children: “Those of us who (study) Alice or (have studied) have always thought that this story is directly related to this whole issue.”

Skinner, who did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment, wrote in her op-ed that the silence about her mother’s abuse extended beyond her family because of her mother’s fame: “Many influential people learned some of my story, but continued to support and add to a story they knew was false.”

Others who had worked closely with Munro knew about Skinner’s experience, Thacker said: “Of course people knew she had a burden to bear.” He declined to name specific names, but said he had spoken to a colleague about how they had expected Munro’s family secret to be shared with the world, and both had decided to confirm that they had known it earlier.

Penguin Random House Canada did not respond to a request for comment. When The Post contacted Deborah Treisman, The New Yorker’s fiction editor since 2003, she declined to comment.