The Anatomy of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A tragic lesson from Alice Munro's daughter

On May 14^th, 2024, the Canadian Nobel laureate, Alice Munro, died at her home in Port Hope, Ontario and her publisher said at the time,"Alice Munro is a national treasure — a writer of enormous depth, empathy, and humanity whose work is read, admired, and cherished by readers throughout Canada and around the world… Alice’s writing inspired countless writers too, and her work leaves an indelible mark on our literary landscape.”

Regarded by many as one of the greatest short story authors, Munro’s legacy was changed completely last week by her daughter, Andrea, who revealed that her stepfather sexually abused her at the of age nine and that Munro knew this and stayed with him.

This is the first layer of the abuse of Andrea. Unfortunately, this is common in childhood abuse where the initial sexual abuse is compounded by the abusive actions of the family. The victim is often blamed, ignored and the abuse is hidden from the outside world – all of this takes a crime and makes it a prolonged tragedy of abuse.

The study of anatomy teaches us that each structure, each layer, has a purpose – skin, muscle, nerves, blood vessels and bones - all work together, allowing the body to function. The anatomy of abuse is the same, where layers of abuse support each other, each with their own function.

When Andrea told her father, Alice Munro's ex-husband, Jim Munro, that her stepfather was abusing her soon after it began, her father didn’t tell his ex-wife.

To date, little attention has focused on Andrea’s father, a prominent member of the literary community and the co-founder of Munro's Books in Victoria. Andrea’s father’s actions were a layer of abuse. He knew of a crime committed against his nine-year-old daughter but he didn’t report it to the police and he failed to get Andrea counselling and help to deal with what she had gone through. For a young child looking for solace and justice from her father, Andrea’s father failed miserably and pushed her abuse into a vat of silence.*

In 1992, when Andrea was in her twenties, she wrote a letter to her mother and stepfather outlining the sexual assault. In response, her step father “wrote letters to the family... in which he admitted to the abuse but blamed it on her. “He described my 9-year-old self as a ‘homewrecker,’” … and accused her of invading his bedroom “for sexual adventure" in one of the letters he wrote to the family.”

These letters are another layer of the abuse of Andrea: a perpetrator blames a child for their illegal actions, treating a nine-year-old like an adult having an affair rather than being a victim.

Then Alice Munro heaped on more abuse, saying that “she loved him too much, and that our misogynistic culture was to blame if I expected her to deny her own needs, sacrifice for her children and make up for the failings of men. She was adamant that whatever had happened was between me and my stepfather. It had nothing to do with her.”

Reinforcing her husband’s abuse, Alice Munro again treats her daughter as if she were an adult involved in an affair with her husband rather than a child who was sexually abused by an adult. Munro also clearly puts her love of her husband above her love of Andrea and her responsibility as a mother to protect her own child.

Andrea’s family also heaped on the abuse of silence to protect Alice Munro, while failing to protect Andrea. “Munro’s children have been clear that their silence, their father’s silence and that of people who knew the family, was maintained to protect Munro’s reputation.”

When Andrea broke this silence and used her stepfather’s own letters to charge him with sexual abuse of a minor, Detective Sam Lazarevich’s reaction provided the first glimmer of decency in the abuse of Andrea:

“Retired Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sam Lazarevich remembers a very angry Munro accusing her daughter of lying when he visited Munro’s home in 2004 to inform the husband that he was going to be charged. In an interview with The Associated Press, Lazarevich said Munro was furious, defended her second husband and the detective recalls being “quite surprised” by her reaction. “‘That’s your daughter. Aren’t you going to defend your daughter?’” he recalls.”

This moment of decency did not last and silence reigned again. From 2004 till the death of Alice Munro on May 13^th, 2024 there was no news of Andrea’s abuse. In fact, the story only broke last week and we are finally seeing how breaking through the silence is the only road to justice.

Readers are weighing in with essays on how they cannot look at Alice Munro’s work as they once did and her legacy – as a genius whose short stories provided insight into women and girls – is now damaged. Academia is reeling as well, pondering how to continue to teach Munro’s writing in light of this abuse and Western University announced it paused a chair created in her honour.

The abuse of children is rarely limited to the initial sexual abuse: family often adds layers of abuse of their own. Andrea’s story, dissected, teaches us a great deal about the anatomy of childhood sexual abuse, the power of silence and how blame and denial compound the abuse of the initial crime. If Andrea's father had reported the crime of her abuse and he and the family spoke about it publicly, then Andrea's stepfather would not have written the abusive letters blaming Andrea for the abuse. Alice Munro would have had to publicly deal with this and it is unlikely she would have had the abusive conversation with her daughter, treating Andrea as an adult involved in an affair with her husband. And the world would have had a reckoning with Alice Munro – who knows how that story would have gone?

*Addendum: After reading comments to my article on  this site and various social media sites, I would like to stress this fact: sexually abusing a child is a crime and cannot be treated as a 'family matter' anymore than learning of any other crime, such as murder, can remain a 'family matter'.

I say this because the patients I treated who have been sexually abused all were subjected to the initial sexual abuse and then the abuse of silence and shouldering the blame of the abuser and their family. None  of my patients had their initial sexual abuse reported to the police, therapy immediately and their family encircle them to protect them from further abuse. Why? Because those who had those things probably didn't need prolonged therapy as adults. Some might, but far fewer than those subjected to the prolonged abuse of silence. This is not just a physician's anecdote: the research bears this out. 

We need to charge people who fail to report the crime of childhood sexual abuse.