Weeks After Alice Munro’s Death, Daughter Tells of Dark Family Secret

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I love Munro, this sucks that she did that to her daughter

FROM ANDREA MUNRO, in the Toronto Star. July 7, 2024

In 1976, I went to visit my mother, Alice Munro, for the summer at her home in Clinton, Ont. One night, while she was away, her husband, my stepfather, Gerald Fremlin, climbed into the bed where I was sleeping and sexually assaulted me. I was nine years old. I was a happy child — active and curious — who had only just realized I couldn’t grow up to be a sheep-herding dog, a great disappointment, as I loved both dogs and sheep. The next morning, I couldn’t get out of bed. I’d woken up with my first migraine, which developed over the years into a chronic, debilitating condition that continues to this day. I longed to go home, back to Victoria to be with my father, Jim Munro, my stepmother, Carole, and my stepbrother, Andrew. On the day I finally did fly home, Fremlin took me to the airport by himself. My mother was busy. In the car, he asked me to play a game called “show me.” When I said no, he made me tell him about my “sex life,” prying me for details of innocent games I played with other children. Then he told me about his sex life. Back in Victoria, I told Andrew what had happened, trying to make a joke of it. He didn’t laugh. He said I should tell his mother right away. I did, and she told my father, who decided to say nothing to my mother. I was relieved at first that my father didn’t tell her what had happened to me. She had told me that Fremlin liked me better than her, and I thought she would blame me if she ever found out. I thought she might die. As relieved as I was, my father’s inability to take swift and decisive action to protect me also left me feeling that I no longer truly belonged in either home. I was alone. I returned to the home in Clinton every summer for the next several years. My stepfather’s volatile moods dominated our lives, and I spent many days at the auction barn down the road, with the animals who were waiting for pickup. When I was alone with Fremlin, he made lewd jokes, exposed himself during car rides, told me about the little girls in the neighbourhood he liked, and described my mother’s sexual needs. At the time, I didn’t know this was abuse. I thought I was doing a good job of preventing abuse by averting my eyes and ignoring his stories.

When I was 11, former friends of Fremlin’s told my mother he’d exposed himself to their 14-year-old daughter. He denied it, and when my mother asked about me, he “reassured” her that I was not his type. In front of my mother, he told me that many cultures in the past weren’t as “prudish” as ours, and it used to be considered normal for children to learn about sex by engaging in sex with adults. My mother said nothing. I looked at the floor, afraid she might see my face turning red. By the time I was a teenager, I was at war with myself, suffering from bulimia, insomnia and migraines. I was a high-achieving high school student with a strong wish to help others. But my private pain was taking a toll. In university, my grades plummeted as bulimia took over my life. I dropped out of an international development program at the University of Toronto and gave up my dream of working abroad. By the time I was 25, I couldn’t picture a future for myself. One day, during that period, while I was visiting my mother, she told me about a short story she had just read. In the piece, a girl dies by suicide after her stepfather sexually abuses her. “Why didn’t she tell her mother?” she asked me. A month later, inspired by her reaction to the story, I wrote her a letter finally telling her what had happened to me. As it turned out, in spite of her sympathy for a fictional character, my mother had no similar feelings for me. She reacted exactly as I had feared she would, as if she had learned of an infidelity. She called my sister Sheila, told her she was leaving Fremlin, and flew to her condo in Comox, B.C. I visited her there and was overwhelmed by her sense of injury to herself. She believed my father had made us keep the secret in order to humiliate her. She then told me about other children Fremlin had “friendships” with, emphasizing her own sense that she, personally, had been betrayed.

Did she realize she was speaking to a victim, and that I was her child? If she did, I couldn’t feel it. When I tried to tell her how her husband’s abuse had hurt me, she was incredulous. “But you were such a happy child,” she said. Meanwhile, Fremlin acted quickly. He told my mother he would kill me if I ever went to the police, and wrote letters to my family, blaming me for the abuse. He described my nine-year-old self as a “homewrecker,” and said my family’s failure to intervene suggested they agreed with him. He also threatened retribution: “Andrea invaded my bedroom for sexual adventure” — I had asked Fremlin the night the abuse took place if I could sleep in the spare bed in the room he shared with my mother — “ … for Andrea to say she was ‘scared’ is simply a lie … Andrea has brought ruin to two people who love each other … If the worst comes to worst I intend to go public. I will make available for publication a number of photographs, notably some taken at my cabin near Ottawa which are extremely eloquent … one of Andrea in my underwear shorts …” (I’d forgotten about the photos until I read this letter. I was 11 when most of the pictures were taken.) In spite of the letters and threats, my mother went back to Fremlin, and stayed with him until he died in 2013. She said that she had been “told too late,” she loved him too much, and that our misogynistic culture was to blame if I expected her to deny her own needs, sacrifice for her children, and make up for the failings of men. She was adamant that whatever had happened was between me and my stepfather. It had nothing to do with her. I believe my mother answered her own question about the girl in the story. She didn’t tell her mother because she would rather die than risk her mother’s rejection. Years passed. My father continued to have lunches with my mother, never mentioning me. I asked him about these lunches before he died. He told me I just never came up in their conversations. My siblings and parents carried on with their busy lives. I tried to forgive my mother and Fremlin and continued to visit them and the rest of my family. We all went back to acting as if nothing had happened. It was what we did. The denial continued for the next 10 years. Inside, I was still at war with this thing, this ugliness. Me. But gradually, through therapy, I learned that it wasn’t my fault. I fell in love with a good man, got married, and had children. My dream of being a sheep-herding dog wasn’t so impossible after all. I spent my days running after my twins, and my evenings lying flat-out exhausted somewhere around the house. Today, safeguarding the vulnerable is still the driving force of my life. I help people who want to heal their trauma by connecting with horses. I ended contact with my mother after my twins were born. At first, I told her only that I could never see Fremlin again, never have him near my children. She explained how inconvenient it would be for her to visit me on her own, since she didn’t drive. I exploded, and told her our relationship was over. Two years later, when I was 38, I read an interview in the New York Times with my mother, in which she described Gerald Fremlin in very loving terms. She said she was lucky to have him in her life, and declared that she had a “close relationship” with all three of her daughters, including me. For three weeks I was too sick to move, and hardly left my bed. I had long felt inconsequential to my mother, but now she was erasing me.

I wanted to speak out. I wanted to tell the truth. That’s when I went to the police to report my abuse. For so long I’d been telling myself that holding my pain alone had at least helped my family, that I had done the moral thing, contributing to the greatest good for the greatest number. Now, I was claiming my right to a full life, taking the burden of abuse and handing it back to Fremlin. On Feb. 25, 2005, four months after the interview came out, Gerald Fremlin was charged with “indecently assaulting” me sometime between July 1 and Aug. 31, 1976. (Without Fremlin’s letters, the case would have been much weaker. I had once tried to destroy them, out of shame, but luckily my sister Jenny stopped me.) On March 11, 2005, he pleaded guilty on arraignment, without a trial, and was sentenced to two years’ probation. He was also ordered by the court to avoid any activity that brought him into contact with children under the age of 14 for two years. I was satisfied. I hadn’t wanted to punish him. I believed he was too old to hurt anyone else. What I wanted was some record of the truth, some public proof that I hadn’t deserved what had happened to me. I also wanted this story, my story, to become part of the stories people tell about my mother. 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. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. My mother’s fame meant the silence continued. For years after Fremlin’s conviction, I was estranged from my family of origin. They didn’t seem to understand the pain of abandonment I still carried, and when I was with them, I felt I was on trial to explain myself. I needed to focus on healing instead. Then, in 2014, my sister Jenny reached out. She told me that she and my other siblings, sister Sheila and stepbrother Andrew, had gone to the Gatehouse, in Toronto, an organization that helps survivors of childhood sexual abuse. They went to learn more about my separation from them. They wanted to better understand themselves and each other, and to process their part in the silence around Fremlin’s abuse of me. Until Jenny wrote, I had thought my disappearance was a relief to my siblings. I was wrong. They were hurting too. I was 49 years old when I went to the Gatehouse for the first time. Being there gave me the courage to start opening up to my family. Now, eight years later, I have them back in my life, and the healing continues. I belong to a whole community at the Gatehouse for whom telling the truth is shame-busting medicine. As for my relationship with my mother, I never reconciled with her. I made no demands on myself to mend things, or forgive her. I grieved the loss of her, and that was an important part of my healing. Children are still silenced far too often. In my case, my mother’s fame meant that the secrecy spread far beyond the family. Many influential people came to know something of my story yet continued to support, and add to, a narrative they knew was false. It seemed as if no one believed the truth should ever be told, that it never would be told, certainly not on a scale that matched the lie.

Wow, what a bitch Alice was.

The greatest crime here is actually r3/r4/r5/r6's refusal to use paragraph breaks.

Fuck. That was difficult to read. Assuming it's true, Alice was a monster. A total monster.

What a stupid bitch. Fuck Alice Munro.

What a terrible person Alice Munro was. Fuck her. I wish hell existed; she’d surely be there.

There was another female author who was canceled for doing pretty much the same thing—and I sound like a fool because I’m drawing a complete blank on details. I’m thinking fantasy-historical, and she went by three names??

The good thing, for the daughter Andrea, is that Munro's husband got charged criminally. He did plead guilty and was sentenced only to probation. But Andrea was happy with the outcome.

The best thing is that her siblings and she reconciled. Prior to that, she had been the family pariah.

Marion Zimmer Bradley?

"Bradley and Breen separated in 1979 but remained married, and continued a business relationship and lived on the same street for over a decade. They officially divorced on May 9, 1990, the year Breen was arrested on child molestation charges after a 13-year-old boy reported that Breen had been molesting him for four years.[8] She had edited Breen's book Greek Love (published pseudonymously), which was dedicated to her (named simply as "[his] wife"), and in 1965 had contributed an article, "Feminine Equivalents of Greek Love in Modern Literature", to Breen's journal The International Journal of Greek Love.[9][10] She allegedly had knowledge of Breen's sexual interests and was said to have accepted his sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy.[11]"

Marion Zimmer Bradley, that was her name.

Why do all these women side with their loser predator husbands? If I found out anyone in my life was doing shit like molesting kids I’d tell them to fuck off.

A lot of these women have been molested, themselves, and are untreated. That's not an excuse, it's an explanation -- for some of these women / mothers. So, they're in denial about a lot of things.

Pedophile men will target women with children.

No clue who this person is.

Alice Munro, you mean, R19? And you're actually stating this with no sense of embarrassment over your ignorance?

You have no clue who Alice Munro, one of the most famous writers of your lifetime, was, r19? even though she was one of the very few North Americans to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

r12 Marion Zimmer Bradley. Her and that Fremlin and Alice Munro cunt (and I detest the c word) should suffer forever for all they did and didn't do.

I am so very lucky I was raised in a safe, stable, all-female household from birth to my late teens.

[Quote] Her and that Fremlin and Alice Munro cunt (and I detest the c word) should suffer forever

Her should?

Both Munro and her ex-husband were culpable. James Munro sent his young daughter to stay over the summer, half way across the country, for many years with the man he knew had molested her. When she returned in the fall, did he ask her, "So, did you get molested this year, honey?" Alice Munro swept it under the rug, envious of the attention her pedophile husband paid to her daughter. Ignoble prize for shitty parenting.

That's terrible. It also happened to someone I knew, she told her mother about being abused sexually but mother didn't believe her.

Yeah, the daughter's bio father was unprotective, as well. He should have kicked some ass, but he cowered, really. Bio father didn't even tell bio mother about it. Daughter said she felt completely alone when that happened.

You would think the bio father, at least, would have been angry about it. And would have reported this to the police, sought full custody, etc. It wasn't like he would have been a single father. He was already remarried and had other children.

R17 when you love someone that does something terrible, the brain does weird things to tell you they’re not responsible. You’d think that discovering someone is an abuser would extinguish the love, but that doesn’t happen. It would be a lot easier if it did.

“Kicking ass” never happens

Usually silence is what happens, because that is the closest thing to making it all go away.

She looks like Olympia Dukakis

Unreal that there are adults who actually entertain the thought, let alone actually believe, that a child shares responsibility for being sexually abused. I can't imagine anyone thinking that way. Alice Munro and her husband sound like awful people.

And yeah, when reading that the biological father decided not to tell Alice about the abuse, I assumed the article was then going to say that he made excuses so that his daughter would never again visit her mom for the summer and be around the stepdad. But no, off she was sent, year after year. Damn. That's three adults who directly abused and/or allowed their daughter to continue to be abused.

Alice Munro was one of my favorite short story writers. Truly so gifted.

I really do not understand the bio father at all. If my daughter tells me that she was molested, I would try to find answers (nice way to put it) right away. Why was he just "ok" with it? It might have been devastating for the daughter; betrayed by both her bio parents.

Pedos target women who are vulnerable, including women who can be manipulated or persuaded that abuse is ok. A lot of these women have been abused themselves and cope by minimising what happening them, or by siding with the perpetrator. So they can be very loyal to the pedo husband. Happens a lot.

This makes me applaud the Oprahs and the Donahues. Seriously. For better or worse, those types of shows really changed how we think, make excuses for (or don't make excuses for), and ultimately handle things like sexual molestation. Topics we used to sweep under rug - much like the Munro's did.

For instance, when my sister was a teenager a family friend's father molested her. My mom went full blown Oprah and went after that man. I wonder if she'd have done that so vigorously had it happened twenty years earlier? Probably not, honestly.

I still can believe Munro went to her grave not making things right with her daughter. The perv was fucking convicted of it! Her daughter clearly wasn't ever lying.

I don't know how I feel about the bio dad. He clearly cared for his daughter. But maybe he just didn't have the tools to fight Alice Munro? One of the most famous living writers? Still not right. But perhaps more complicated than it seems.

Alice Munro was a great writer.

Women in general make bad mothers.

Munro worshipers are willfully ignorant of any criticism leveled at their idol. They will be untroubled by this.

I stand by my assessment that Munro's work is overrated. Read William Trevor instead. Far superior.

Was Fremlin hot? Any pictures?

Gross

Well, Mommy Dearest syndrome never lets up, does it?

Neither does sexual abuse of children, R40, which is what this is really about. Or are you okay with sexual abuse of children?

Really horrible. And he started with she was just 9 years old.

Good for her for writing that article.

How tacky.

R41 yes yes and yes. Isn’t that obvious by now? We just want the whiners to shut up

My sister got divorced her 2 children were quite young. She had brief affairs with s few men but never married again. She told me it was easier that way, because if she ever brought a man into the house and he messed with her children she would kill him, then her kids would be without a mom.

I told her that she was a pretty good judge of character so I doubted that would happen. She said, "doesn't matter. Part of me is afraid I WOULDN'T kill him and I don't want to find that out." My sister is an amazing mom.

Sorry for all the typos.

This isn't about "whiners" in this case, R44, so why do you mention "whiners" here?

[quote] When I was 11, former friends of Fremlin’s told my mother he’d exposed himself to their 14-year-old daughter. He denied it, and when my mother asked about me, he “reassured” her that I was not his type. In front of my mother, he told me that many cultures in the past weren’t as “prudish” as ours, and it used to be considered normal for children to learn about sex by engaging in sex with adults.

This actually doesn't shock me. I remember reading a true crime book that featured interviews with paedophiles. One of them said that the reason young people are so immature these days is that "we don't let children have mature experiences anymore".

From what I've been told by others who've been through this, the mother ignoring sexual abuse of their daughters and staying/siding with the abuser happens more often than not. Just anecdotal, but still. Pretty shocking and depressing.

Munro is one of my favorite writers. This is truly disappointing. I feel so sorry for Andrea Munro.

This is what people don’t get about family abuse. Love doesn’t evaporate when people find out their loved ones have done terrible things. It would be so much easier if it did. All these people who say they’d have blown away the guy if it was them? No, they wouldn’t have. They don’t understand at all.

R51 sure they wouldn’t have blown away the guy, but if you’re a good mother - you leave the husband or the boyfriend who is climbing into bed and taking his dick out in front of your 9 year old daughter. And if you’re a good father and your 9 year old daughter reports this situation, you call the kid’s mother and you let her know.

Otherwise you’re a shitty parent.

No one is asking anyone to kill anyone - but the bare minimum is you remove that person from the kid’s life. Whether you love them or not.

And this wasn’t even the girl’s father who was taking the mother to court and demanding he have access to the girl. This was some pervert stepfather that everyone basically shrugged about despite a bunch of red flags and the child telling her father, stepmother and sibling what happened.

Massive failure to protect her. Very sad.

The first thing I thought about was the Oscar winning scene in Precious.

[quote]Her should? She. Oops LOL. It was late and I was on Benadryl. Sorry, r23!

[quote]Was Fremlin hot? Any pictures?

Fuck you, r38. You are disgusting.

This is not surprising.

My mother repeatedly lied to police when I called them at least 3-4 times, because her husband had repeatedly physically assaulted my mother, had intentionally touched my breasts, & attempted to bargain some sort of lewd arrangement, where if I acquiesced to him by showing him my breasts, he’d give me my house & car keys back, which he would repeatedly hide from me.

Later, after doing some research, I discovered my mother was also aware of his extensive criminal background that he earned by engaging in what was now a history of domestic violence assaults upon his ex wives.

He even hides a gun in their home, that is unregistered, due to the gun ownership restrictions placed upon him, due to his criminal history.

On this last Friday afternoon, I received a call from their local police department: My mother had been physically assaulted, and claimed to have been threatened with the use of weapons against her, as someone tried to get her out of the home, in attempts to lock all the doors, leaving her outside in her pajamas.

When the police dept. contacted me, I immediately asked the dispatcher to connect me to the police who were at my mom’s home, which they did.

The officer who spoke to me said that my mother looked utterly disheveled. I asked to speak to my mom, who proceeded to tell me that a woman from church was living there, and had assaulted her by brandishing a weapon, while throwing her to the floor, & then threw a chair at her, which was followed by dragging my mom outside, all done in an attempt to lock my mother out of the home.

Somehow, my mother managed to call the police, which triggered a call to me from the officers on scene, because they had repeatedly attempted to reach her husband to no avail.

Conveniently, my stepfather was not home, which reminded me that whenever some sort of brouhaha broke out at the home while I lived there, my stepfather would immediately take off with his unregistered gun, over to his sister’s home, in order to hide his gun, until things cooled down.

His other m.o. was to throw my mom to the floor, and kick her. According to my mother, he had done this numerous times, and once grabbed her open laptop, and broke it to pieces while beating her with it.

When I lived there, he attempted to lock me out of the home, in a non calm, forceful manner.

Now, I had no idea that a church lady had moved into my old room, & I will never know if this is true or untrue, since my mother will protect her husband no matter what. However, I find it odd that an older church lady would do this to my mom as a tenant. Odder still, is that when I asked my mother to name her alleged assailant, my mother responded by telling me she did not know this woman’s name.

The police asked me to contact my stepfather. I broke my no contact rule & texted him that there had been a serious incident at his home involving my mom, & that the police needed to speak to him ASAP. He never texted me back, nor did he call me.

I have spent the last 2.5 years consumed with guilt & shame, blaming myself for not having my shit together enough, in order to get my mother out of there, by providing for her financially.

It FINALLY dawned on me that it did NOT matter. I could have been a billionaire, & it would not make a bit of a difference, as my mother is now completely broken, & is so dependent on him, she will NEVER leave him, unless she dies.

I’m SOOO, SOOO grateful to no longer live there, & I am still overcoming the PTSD I accrued while living there, as well as processing the loneliness & emotional neglect I was subjected to as a small child, teen, etc.

Thanks for posting this, OP. It reminds me that my story is sadly, not unique. I’m so happy for Andrea & the decent life she created for herself, regardless of the utterly devastating emotional abandonment she experienced. Obviously, I completely relate, & strive to be as brave as she is.

Poor kid (and you too r55). This needs to be required reading for anyone who says, Why didn’t they just tell someone? Attitudes have changed but not that much.

What is the legal system in Canada that an adult male thinks he has the upper hand when he threatens his step-daughter with incriminating evidence such as letters he wrote and photos? Photos???

I read Munro passed away recently so I've been re-reading some of her work. I was in the middle of Open Secrets but I think I'll put this one back on the shelf. Fuck her and fuck the Albanian Virgin.

R55, you sound like an amazing individual. I'm glad you came to the realization that you are not responsible for your mother's choices.

R55, try to be a bit braver and extend some compassion to nonhuman animals. Animal cruelty is not funny.

I love Alice Munro’s writing, but this didn’t surprise me at all.

The reoccurring themes of Munro’s life are of a woman who prioritized her own need for self-actualization above all else and was quite ruthless about jettisoning things that impeded her ability to write.

Also, for someone who became famous for dissecting the dark effects of repressed lives in starchy “we don’t talk about that sort of thing” WASP Canada, it’s clear that herself she was very much an emotional product of Huron County and that she was never able to escape the place.

Fuck off, R58. I love my pets.

Are you my POS stepfather, who regularly trolls this site?

IDGAF if you are, or aren’t.

NON PAYWALL LINK BELOW

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This all seems very un-Canadian.

Some posters mentioned that prdos target vulnerable women, but I would rather say they target immature and childish, but also selfish, cold, narcissistic, emotionally distorted women, who they feel will protect them and let them get away with child abuse. They have good instincts, they rarely get with women who have character and empathy.

This is the reason the abuse happens, they would never dare touch the child of protective mother.

Re Munro, she was a big hit some ten years ago and I wanted to see what was it all about. I almost felt guilty that I was bored, she was not bad, but nothing special.

[quote] women who have character and empathy.

I wouldn't say Munro was without either--certainly as a writer she had empathy. Choosing a man over a child is not at all untypical, particularly for women of her generation.

Predators and grifters rely on the politeness of normal people to get their way, people who won't talk. They cast a wide net to secure their prey.

The victims are ashamed and won't discuss it, predators know this and depend on silence to continue the abuse.

This is why I advocate for men to fight for custody of their children and continue to be actively involved, especially if his ex brings a new man into their lives. Predators tend to target single mothers, often romancing the mom while keeping a perverted eye on the kids. It's shocking how many women look the other way or blame the children for the abuse. I'm starting to believe the material instinct is overrated, or maybe some women just don't possess it. When my mother was single, she had a revolving door of men, and one of those men assaulted me. Of course, she didn't believe me and continued to have my abuser hang out at the house afterward. So many of my friends have similar stories of abusive stepfathers and indifferent mothers. A close female friend of mine vowed never to have children because of her mother. My horrific childhood is also why I never wanted to become a parent. Not even adoption is an option for me. I just don't want the responsibility of raising children. I suppose I'm just like my in that regard.

[quote] I'm starting to believe the material instinct is overrated,

^I'm sorry that should be maternal instinct not material. Damn, you autocorrect!

[quote]I suppose I'm just like my in that regard

^just like my mother in that regard.

[quote]This all seems very un-Canadian.

Comments like this are why every other nation considers Americans stupid.

I’ll go to my grave never understanding why they always blame the poor mother in these situations.

Perhaps, R72, that post was meant to be a joke? Perhaps?

I was molested.

Don't be such a literalist, R72. That comment was obviously very tongue-in-cheek.

[quote] Predators and grifters rely on the politeness of normal people to get their way, people who won't talk. They cast a wide net to secure their prey.

I think I know what you were trying to say.

However, this is not being "polite," this is being complacent and complicit. You're not a good person if you overlook someone, child or otherwise, being abused.

[quote] This is why I advocate for men to fight for custody of their children and continue to be actively involved, especially if his ex brings a new man into their lives.

The bio dad did know she was being sexually assaulted at her mom's (Munro's) and step-father's house. Bio dad did nothing. Even if bio dad had had a larger share of custody, she still would have spent time with her step-father.

R67 I don't mean that fake empathy for fictional characters and for hungry children in Ethiopia, I mean empathy for people close to you. Munro's pervert of a husband sensed that she was selfish to the bone and twisted, just like him. That is how he chose her.

I think it was Salinger who discribed a women in a movie theater crying her eyes out over movie characters then being evil bitch and slapping her little son over some nonsense when leavibg the theatre.

r72 and r76 Then why were Americans (and to be fair, most of the world 🙄) shocked at the revelation that Doug Ford is such a slimeball? Explain that one.

R80: What does R64's "un-Canadian" quip about Alice Munro's situation have to do with anyone's feelings about media coverage on disgraced Ontario politician Doug Ford?

People might express mild surprise when sordid news stories come out of Canada because they generally associate the country with wholesomeness, common sense, and level-headedness; that does not mean, however, that they cannot conceive of any Canadian ever being sleazy, corrupt, or out of line. You're making something up about Americans ("and, to be fair, most of the world") that simply isn't true.

[quote] Bio dad did nothing. Even if bio dad had had a larger share of custody, she still would have spent time with her step-father.

Im not making excuses for him, but it was a different time. Child abuse was not rare back then, but sadly, the law had not caught up yet, and children had very little rights or resources. Family court has come a long way, but there's still more to go. This particular person doesn't represent all men. Most fathers would kill a man for harming his children. I still believe having an active father in a child's life especially when the parents are no longer together is a benefit rather than a deficit.

I agree, R82. I would hope and think that Munro's daughter's bio dad was more of an anomaly.

Unpopular opinion, I think it's OK for people to divorce, but after that, they should remain single (at least as far as who is living in the house). They can date, but don't move in a step-dad, "uncle," etc.