Simon Vance

That Monroe apparently derived these themes from a real-life episode has made her work feel suddenly transparent, as though it has been injected with a contrast dye, revealing zones of private meaning. Monroe seems to have spent much of her career absorbed by the same questions that readers have asked since Andrea published her essay— Why did she not protect her daughter?

That Monroe apparently derived these themes from a real-life episode has made her work feel suddenly transparent, as though it has been injected with a contrast dye, revealing zones of private meaning. Monroe seems to have spent much of her career absorbed by the same questions that readers have asked since Andrea published her essay— Why did she not protect her daughter?

What led her to take Fremlin back? How could a writer who was capable of such power on the page prove so feeble in real life? In the months since the revelations, I revisited Munro's stories, spoke with members of her family, and tracked down a number of her unpublished letters.

What led her to take Fremlin back? How could a writer who was capable of such power on the page prove so feeble in real life? In the months since the revelations, I revisited Munro's stories, spoke with members of her family, and tracked down a number of her unpublished letters.

Monroe's appalling failures as a mother seem to have been an imaginative incitement, instrumental to her artistic project, something that Andrea may have grasped before anyone else. When Thacker wrote back to Andrea in 2005, he offered to remove from his book any passages that mentioned her and Fremlin together. No, you do not understand, Andrea said to me last month, describing her response.

Monroe's appalling failures as a mother seem to have been an imaginative incitement, instrumental to her artistic project, something that Andrea may have grasped before anyone else. When Thacker wrote back to Andrea in 2005, he offered to remove from his book any passages that mentioned her and Fremlin together. No, you do not understand, Andrea said to me last month, describing her response.

This is intimately linked to the work my mother does. In Canada, Monroe was known as St. Alice, a paragon of virtue and compassion. Now she has come to symbolize something else, maternal dereliction. In the days after news of the abuse broke, social media filled up with photos of Munro's books discarded in recycling bins.

This is intimately linked to the work my mother does. In Canada, Monroe was known as St. Alice, a paragon of virtue and compassion. Now she has come to symbolize something else, maternal dereliction. In the days after news of the abuse broke, social media filled up with photos of Munro's books discarded in recycling bins.

The University of Western Ontario, her alma mater, announced that it was pausing its Alice Munro chair in creativity so as to carefully consider Munro's legacy and her ties to Western. Writers who once celebrated her work and openly acknowledged its influence on their own began to reconsider their allegiance.

The University of Western Ontario, her alma mater, announced that it was pausing its Alice Munro chair in creativity so as to carefully consider Munro's legacy and her ties to Western. Writers who once celebrated her work and openly acknowledged its influence on their own began to reconsider their allegiance.

These revelations not only crush Monroe's legacy as a person, but they make the stories that were in retrospect so clearly about those unfathomable betrayals basically unreadable as anything but half-realized confessions. The author, Rebecca Mackay, who is herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, reacted in the Times. To me, that makes them unreadable at all.

These revelations not only crush Monroe's legacy as a person, but they make the stories that were in retrospect so clearly about those unfathomable betrayals basically unreadable as anything but half-realized confessions. The author, Rebecca Mackay, who is herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, reacted in the Times. To me, that makes them unreadable at all.

Before the recent news emerged, my own opinion of Munro's fiction could hardly have been higher. She seemed to have a more direct access to reality than any of her contemporaries, whose work, by comparison, could feel contrived and paper-thin.

Before the recent news emerged, my own opinion of Munro's fiction could hardly have been higher. She seemed to have a more direct access to reality than any of her contemporaries, whose work, by comparison, could feel contrived and paper-thin.

It had been several years since I last picked up her books, but my memory was of paragraphs as thick with life, with fleeting earthly data, as the background of a Bruegel. In one story, set in the 1930s, a poor family has a bathroom installed in the corner of their kitchen, the only place it will fit.

It had been several years since I last picked up her books, but my memory was of paragraphs as thick with life, with fleeting earthly data, as the background of a Bruegel. In one story, set in the 1930s, a poor family has a bathroom installed in the corner of their kitchen, the only place it will fit.

The walls are made of beaver board so that even the tearing of a piece of toilet paper, the shifting of a haunch, was audible to those working or talking or eating in the kitchen. This leads to an unspoken agreement whereby no one ever seemed to hear or be listening, and no reference was made. The person creating the noises in the bathroom was not connected with the person who walked out.

The walls are made of beaver board so that even the tearing of a piece of toilet paper, the shifting of a haunch, was audible to those working or talking or eating in the kitchen. This leads to an unspoken agreement whereby no one ever seemed to hear or be listening, and no reference was made. The person creating the noises in the bathroom was not connected with the person who walked out.

It's a short aside, but it contains, in miniature, so many of Munro's great themes. Family, shame, strategic silences, the open secret of the body and its needs. When I went back to the stories this summer, full of the same anger I saw coursing around the internet, I was afraid I would find them, as Mackay described, like half-realized confessions, misshapen, off-balance, chaotic with grief.

It's a short aside, but it contains, in miniature, so many of Munro's great themes. Family, shame, strategic silences, the open secret of the body and its needs. When I went back to the stories this summer, full of the same anger I saw coursing around the internet, I was afraid I would find them, as Mackay described, like half-realized confessions, misshapen, off-balance, chaotic with grief.