Terry Prone: How the truth can change the lens in which we view an entire life

Moralists, over recent days, have suggested readers should think twice about buying Alice Munro’s work

Alice Munro’s literary legacy will always be influenced by her family secrets and protection of her daughter’s abuser. Picture: Julien Behal/PA

Her second husband sexually assaulted her nine-year-old daughter. Many times. This is not in dispute. He did it and later confessed to doing it.

The daughter’s name is Andrea Robin Skinner. In the early 90s, when she had grown past the age when her stepfather was interested in sex with her, she went to the cops in Canada where the family lived, and provided them with letters her stepfather — Gerald Fremlin — had written, not just admitting the repeated crime, which started when he was in his 50s in 1976, but graphically describing it.