Reconciling with Troubled Artists

In an essay published earlier this month, Andrea Skinner, the daughter of the lauded writer Alice Munro, detailed the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of Munro’s second husband, Gerald Fremlin. The piece goes on to describe how, even after Skinner told her of the abuse, years later, Munro chose to stay with him until his death, in 2013. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the revelations, which have raised familiar questions about what to do when beloved artists are found to have done unforgivable things. They’re joined by fellow staff writer Jiayang Fan, an avid reader of Munro’s work who’s been grappling with the news in real time. Together they revisit the 1993 story “Vandals,” which contains unsettling parallels to the scenario that played out in the Munro home. Have the years since the #MeToo movement given us more nuanced ways of addressing these flare-ups than full-out cancellation? “It’s not a moral loosening that I’m sensing,” Schwartz says. “It’s more of a sense of, Maybe I don’t want to throw out the work altogether—but I do need to wrestle.” 

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“My Stepfather Sexually Abused Me When I Was a Child. My Mother, Alice Munro, Chose to Stay with Him,” by Andrea Skinner (The Toronto Star)

“Vandals,” by Alice Munro (The New Yorker)

“How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda,” by Jiayang Fan (The New Yorker)

“The Love Album: Off the Grid,” by Diddy

“Ignition (Remix),” by R. Kelly

“Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma,” by Claire Dederer

“Manhattan” (1979)

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