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The One About Alice Munro

 Here is the Alice Munro timeline.


At nine years of age, Andrea Skinner is sexually assaulted by her stepfather. She almost immediately tells her own father and his new spouse--and they do nothing with the information. Skinner's stepfather begins a years-long campaign of verbal harassment.

In her teens, Skinner struggles with bulimia; later, she can't finish college. At 25, she shares her traumatic memory with her mother, Alice Munro. Upset by "infidelity," Munro briefly leaves her spouse. But the separation is inconvenient; she returns. She blames her daughter for having acted as a "Lolita."

Around ten years later, Munro speaks with the NYT and describes her marriage in glowing terms. This is sickening for Skinner, and she takes legal action. Her stepfather admits, in writing, that he is a sexual predator, and he gets a light sentence. Because of Munro's literary reputation, the court case is kept a secret (or something very close to a secret),

That's a funny word--"secret." It is, in fact, a part of the title of one of Munro's many famous books. "Open Secrets." One could argue that Munro's husband's monstrousness was an "open secret"; when Andrea Skinner first talked with Munro, Munro acknowledged that her spouse had a reputation for pedophilia. This confirms that Munro knew, for a long while, that she was living with a pedophile (even if she didn't "know" that that pedophile had attacked her daughter).

I never thought that the story of Alice Munro's life would become the subject of an "SVU" hour, but there it is, on Peacock. Last week, we were given "Excavation," about the Munro-Skinner-Fremlin family. It's a terrific episode, mostly because of the actor playing Andrea Skinner. At its best, "SVU" can show us just how much courage is needed if you're going to stand up to powerful forces. Skinner survived assault, then she spoke plainly to an all-but-canonized Nobel laureate (her mother). When the conversation didn't go well (that's putting it lightly), Skinner stayed afloat. (It's interesting that, in the world of SVU, Munro is re-fashioned as a pediatrician. I do think that people saw Munro as a kind of moral authority, with the aura of saintliness that might normally attach itself to a doctor.)

A wonderful hour of television.
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