Critical Perspectives and Reflections

The shocking and quite depressing news of how Canada’s much lionized short story genius and Nobel Laureate, Alice Munro, had abetted the actions and cover up of her youngest daughter’s sexual abuse by her second husband, is all over the place. The fact that this mother, when finally informed by Andrea, took the side of the perpetrator is a shocking, even sickening story. Even after his eventual arrest and conviction for indecent assault in 2005, at age 80, Munro stayed with him but shut her daughter out.   I’m [i] wrestling with these facts   from three perspectives. First, I am a father of three children, two daughters and the grandfather of seven grandchildren, three of them granddaughters. Second, I’ve been a social worker who, for a time, had reason to deal with families where this kind of aberrant behaviour had been reported. Third, my beloved late wife, who was among other things an English major, loved Munro’s writing. As I hear and read the information and th...