Still Alice? Maybe Not...
Great, but not so good (Photo: Postmedia Files).
Dear Wags,
When Alice Munro, a genius of the short story, died on May 13, she was the subject of gilded elegies. Munro author won the 2013 Nobel prize for literature and was beloved far from small town Ontario, which served as the backdrop for her meticulously observed work.
Truth is far more troubling than such fictions. On July 7, Munro’s daughter, Angela Skinner, published a column in the Toronto Star detailing sexual and emotional abuse by her stepfather, Munro’s second husband Gerald Fremlin. Skinner was seven when Fremlin first assaulted her. She told her father, James Munro, who said nothing. She waited 16 years to confront her mother, because, as she wrote in an anguished letter to Munro: “I have been afraid all my life that you would blame me for what happened.”
Which turned out to be prophecy. Munro briefly left Fremlin but went back to him; the couple stayed together until his 2013 death. She informed her daughter that she’d been tardy in telling her. “She loved him too much,” Fremlin wrote in the Star. “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 happened was between me and my stepfather. It had nothing to do with her.”
Skinner went to the authorities in 2005; Fremlin pleaded guilty to indecent assault and got two years probation. Munro never forgave her daughter, but gave her husband a pass. At the time, it did nothing to dent her international acclaim. The abuse didn’t even merit a mention in a 696-page authorized biography published in 2011.
What makes this especially galling is that Munro wrote with such sensitivity about the lives of fictional women and girls. A legion of fans feels betrayed; some have taken to social media to declare that they’ll never read Munro again. An author friend of mine posted on Facebook that she’s tossing all of Munro’s books. A writer whose work was compared to Chekov has been tarnished by crimes against her child.
What’s more important: An unblemished life, or the legacy yet another messy one produced? Artists routinely sacrifice their loved ones in pursuit of greatness; we’ve come to accept monstrousness from stars. But this is child molestation. Even prisoners who commit the worst crimes cannot abide those who victimize kids. The scandal will linger like a nasty odor over Munro’s reputation forever.
Despite the well-documented cruelty of their creators, we still admire Picasso’s Guernica and Norman Mailer’s fiction (until lately, we’ve had a much higher tolerance for male misbehavior in the arts). Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland will never shake suggestions that his behavior around young girls was creepy. The book remains a beloved classic. I hung an illustration of its spine in my office until the Munro scandal prompted me to take it down.
Who am I to judge another literary Alice? Heroes, literary and otherwise, have a habit of letting us down. It’s up to individual readers to decide whether their sins are deal breakers. In the end, judging a literary reputation is an imperfect work of consensus. Individual character is another matter. Alice Munro made a terrible choice with devastating consequences. Despite her feminist rationalizations, it wasn’t the patriarchy’s fault. It was hers. And it is part of her legacy.
For now at least, I’ll be reading short stories by other great writers. You don’t have to join me —make your own call. In any case, such darkness can’t be shrugged off; it must be faced. Among those hailed as great, far too many cannot seem to manage the humble act of being good.
Yours ever,
BKP
Come to the Window by Howard Norman
Just when you think you can’t read another historical novel (is that just me?), along comes Norman with this World War I saga set in Nova Scotia. No ornamental period piece, this is a story relevant to our troubled times. Toby Havershaw, a Halifax reporter, looks into the case of Elizabeth Frame, accused of killing her husband hours after their wedding in the small fishing village of Parrs Harbor. It’s hardly an open-and-shut case, especially when the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic hits town. Some of the elements may be outlandish (Frame throws the murder weapon into a beached whale’s blowhole), but Norman elegantly weaves them into a compelling plot. These puzzle pieces slot together with a satisfying click.
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
I missed this novel in my July roundup and will be kicking myself when awards time rolls around. Brodesser-Akner (Fleishman Is in Trouble) has written a tale so wild, absorbing, and rooted in truth, you’ll tear through it at a sprint. It’s not just a great American family saga, it might qualify as a Great American Novel. The Fletchers live luxuriously in a Gold Coast enclave, but they’ve never really recovered from the long-ago kidnapping of patriarch Carl. His wife Ruth and their kids Nathan, Bernard, and Jenny cope with that dark legacy in vastly different and highly engaging ways. The best part is that the author saves a huge, sad, and satisfying surprise for the last act.
