Jen Gerson: Canada's weird relationship to its artists

Why did anyone expect Alice Munro to be a good person?

By: Jen Gerson

Who could avoid the revelations two weeks ago of Canada's acclaimed short story writer Alice Munro's ill deeds? They were very ill deeds indeed, prompting a CanLit moral tizzy, and a collective revisiting of the question about how much we can detach art from the artist. 

The news set me off on a slightly different tangent, the likes of which tend to be inspired by indulgence of thought brought on by the summer haze. That is, it led me to meditate on the nature of art itself. 

For those unaware, two weeks ago, Munro's daughter, Andrea Robin Skinner, wrote a startling story in the Toronto Star in which she said she had been sexually abused by her step-father, Gerard Fremlin, beginning at the age of nine. Further, her mother not only enabled the man, but when informed of the abuse, sided with him, accusing her pre-teen daughter of being a homewrecker. 

It's sordid stuff, and there is no reason to doubt the veracity of Skinner's claims. Her step-father eventually pled guilty to the abuse. The original Star article was followed up with another from one of the OPP officers who investigated the case; he said outright that Munro accused her daughter of lying — this despite the fact that Fremlin admitted to his crimes. 

These are upsetting revelations, though I suspect stories like Skinner's are radically more common than we would like to believe. It doesn't surprise me that so many would react to the revelations with horror and revulsion. So what place to hold for Munro? What does this country's literary establishment do with her now?