I received my first Alice Munro book from a man who rented a room in our house. He was like an uncle. but not at all like an uncle. Really more of a border.

It had a hard cover with a painting of a young girl on the front, looking thoughtful, sitting on the grass with her head and bare arms resting on her bare knees. It looks like she has no clothes on.

I remember that I found the stories a bit mysterious. I could not pinpoint what they were about and maybe that was Alice’s skill as a writer, setting up the characters and the scene and then leaving you wondering what it was all about. I was young enough to wonder if it was me, if I was not smart enough to understand what the stories meant.

But I was fascinated and kept reading her. As my life went on I collected almost all of her books and I still have the same feeling about her writing. The energy, the people, the scenes, they sink into your mind. Images stay captured on the screen in your mind; the little white goat skull that would fit in the palm of her hand in ending of the story, Runaway, it stays with me.

But what is the meaning of the story? That men can be cruel, that women willingly participate in their own servitude? Maybe Alice was just writing out her pain, placing herself in art, rising above her own misery.

This man, the border, gave me another gift once, when he returned from his trip to Greece I got some lovely blue worry beads which I have kept for all these years.

When you find out what he did, you may wonder how I could have kept the worry beads. But I keep lots of things. I worried the beads for years. I still have a few, one placed in a homemade dream catcher that gives me no dreams.

He had very bright blue eyes, with an intense examining look and a tense energy. He had pocked skin on his cheeks and a delicate nervous way of moving around. He only had four toes on each foot. Sometimes he would tan on the back porch when he had a chance, in a tiny bathing suit.

When his door was open I could see that his room was a mess, piled high with newspapers and magazines and lots of pots of creams and vitamins. He always seemed to be on a new diet regime. As a child I noted the contrast between his neat appearance and his messy room.

I remember mom saying something out of the side of her mouth about this man’s trip to Greece, something about him liking the young boys there. I understood that being gay was not a big deal. I did wonder about the boys though, boys? It was said so lightly, I assumed it was acceptable, in Greece anyway.

We had a busy house with five kids and lots of visitors. He was my mom’s good friend who rented a room and had her same interest; they liked to talk about filmmakers, cinema.

As a young adult I tried to get to know him, or even like him. I had to make an effort because my first impulse was to keep my distance. But he was always there, a satellite circling my home so when I saw him I gave him the respect I would give any of my mom’s friends.

It wasn’t until many years later, pregnant with my first child, that my brother told me that this man had preyed on him, had repeatedly sexually assaulted him. It was a terrible revelation, especially as that very man had sat in on family counseling when my brother was a troubled young boy.

Now I see how pregnancy plays into these revelations. When Alice Munro’s daughter became pregnant with twins she told her mother that she would not allow her step father anywhere near her children. With the vision of another child being hurt, the victim cannot stay silent any longer. Alice Munro said that would be inconvenient for her because she couldn’t drive. She rejected her daughter over and over, for her own comfort and pride.

I told my mother what my brother had said and she was shocked. She informed her friend the border, by way of a tersely written note, that he had to leave the house. There was no further contact with him. We should have taken him to court to prosecute the crime, but at least he was identified and rejected.

I continued to read Alice Munro throughout my life, often passing them to my mom, who would pass them on to my sister. I held Alice Munro in high regard. She was a mother and a wife but she managed to be a writer. It was possible to do both well, that was what I thought. Her existence was a beacon of light, or possibly a mirage.

I never had the confidence to pursue publishing my writing, but I was always a writer. I loved life, I feel in love and eventually had children. All the time holding myself in slight contempt that I did not have the confidence and passion to be the writer I wanted to be.

But last night, as I lay awake after reading a few of Munro’s sad, dark stories, I felt redeemed. I felt emancipated. I let go of the feeling that I had failed somehow in my life. It dispersed like a cold morning fog does when the afternoon sun breaks through.

Her pain, and surely she had pain (a woman who chooses to live with a cruel pedophile has experienced her own abuse) had driven her to the keyboard and she had turned it into art. She was an artist but I see her as a fighting dog, determined to be heard and respected.

Selfish, uninterested in her protecting her children, she focused on her own warped needs, she wrote and wrote. And she made a success of herself. She made a big, false life for herself. She was respected, she had smart friends, she was invited to all the best parties. She made witty repartee with fair weather friends.

But I know these people, I was brought up among them. They are a boorish lot. And here is where the circle meets for me. The man that rented a room in our house was also playing in that world; an intellectual, a snob, an artsy outsider. A sophisticated type, the kind of person that mocks and idealizes the artist.

I was brought up in that very world. A world where young children are preyed upon and leered at by old men, sacrificed to the amoral aesthetic. A world that still exists. I know two friends that were rejected by their whole families for daring to talk about the attacks they endured as a child.

But now I feel confident that I picked the good life, I lived the right life. I was right all along. It was right and proper to focus on being a good person and a good spouse and a good mother. So important to be a good mother.

Alice wrote stories. They were pretty good but who cares. They were just stories. It was her job to protect her daughter and I will always remember her as the mother who cared more about herself than her children.

That’s not how I want to be remembered, and I knew that all along.

I have a book shelf by my bed that holds all my most precious books. The books that have created me. Looking at them now, I see how dark my vision has been. Tove Jansson, Marie Claire Blais, P.D. James and Alice Munro, all pretty dark.

Maybe this revelation about Alice Munro will free me from the shadows in my past.