A Nobel laureate's daughter claims Alice Munro knew her stepfather had sexually molested her when she was a child.

 Andrea Robin Skinner, daughter of Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, has alleged that her stepfather, Gerald Fremlin, sexually abused her as a child and that her mother stayed with him even after he admitted to the abuse.

In an essay and a news article published in Canada's Toronto Star, Skinner recounted how the abuse began in 1976 when she was nine years old and Fremlin was in his 50s. She alleged that Fremlin got into her bed at her mother's home in Clinton, Ontario, and sexually assaulted her. Skinner informed her father, James Munro, but he did not tell Alice Munro.

Over the years, Skinner claims Fremlin continued to proposition her, expose himself, and make disturbing comments about other young girls. The abuse stopped when she became a teenager, but Skinner suffered from bulimia, insomnia, and migraines, which she attributed to the trauma.

In 2005, Skinner went to the police. Fremlin, then 80, was charged with indecent assault and pleaded guilty. He received a suspended sentence and two years’ probation. Despite this, Alice Munro remained with Fremlin until his death in 2013.

Skinner wrote that she first told her mother about the abuse in 1992, when she was in her 20s, after Munro expressed sympathy for a character in a story who was sexually abused by her stepfather. However, Munro reacted as if she had learned of an infidelity. Although Munro temporarily left Fremlin, he admitted to the abuse in letters but blamed Skinner. Munro eventually decided to stay with him, citing her love for him and societal expectations.

In 2002, Skinner distanced herself from her family after telling Munro she would not allow Fremlin near her children. In 2005, after reading an interview where Munro spoke positively about her marriage, Skinner took Fremlin’s letters to the police.

Skinner wrote that Fremlin described her nine-year-old self as a "homewrecker" and accused her of invading his bedroom "for sexual adventure." The silence around the abuse continued even after Fremlin’s death due to her mother’s fame.

“I also wanted this story, my story, to become part of the stories people tell about my mother,” Skinner wrote. “I never wanted to see another interview, biography, or event that didn’t wrestle with the reality of what had happened to me, and with the fact that my mother, confronted with the truth of what had happened, chose to stay with and protect my abuser.”