Queen Esther by John Irving Review – A Disappointing Follow-up to His Classic Work

If certain novelists have an imperial period, in which they hit the summit time after time, then American novelist John Irving’s extended through a series of four substantial, satisfying novels, from his late-seventies breakthrough The World According to Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were expansive, witty, warm books, connecting characters he describes as “misfits” to social issues from feminism to reproductive rights.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining results, save in page length. His last work, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of topics Irving had examined better in prior books (mutism, restricted growth, gender identity), with a lengthy script in the center to extend it – as if filler were necessary.

Thus we come to a recent Irving with reservation but still a faint glimmer of expectation, which shines stronger when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages long – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties novel is part of Irving’s very best books, located mostly in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who once gave such delight

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and identity with richness, comedy and an total empathy. And it was a major work because it left behind the topics that were becoming annoying habits in his works: wrestling, ursine creatures, Vienna, sex work.

The novel begins in the imaginary community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome teenage foundling the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a several generations prior to the storyline of Cider House, yet Dr Larch stays identifiable: even then addicted to the drug, respected by his caregivers, beginning every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in the book is restricted to these early sections.

The family fret about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a adolescent Jewish girl discover her identity?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will enter Haganah, the Jewish nationalist armed force whose “purpose was to defend Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would later form the core of the Israel's military.

Such are huge themes to tackle, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not really about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s additionally not focused on the titular figure. For reasons that must connect to story mechanics, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for another of the Winslows’ daughters, and delivers to a baby boy, the boy, in the early forties – and the bulk of this book is the boy's tale.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and specific. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – Vienna; there’s discussion of dodging the military conscription through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic designation (the animal, meet Sorrow from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, prostitutes, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a more mundane persona than Esther hinted to be, and the supporting players, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor Eissler, are underdeveloped also. There are a few nice set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a fight where a few thugs get beaten with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a subtle writer, but that is is not the issue. He has repeatedly repeated his ideas, telegraphed narrative turns and let them to accumulate in the audience's thoughts before bringing them to resolution in extended, shocking, entertaining moments. For instance, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to go missing: remember the tongue in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces resonate through the plot. In Queen Esther, a central person is deprived of an limb – but we only learn thirty pages the end.

She returns in the final part in the novel, but just with a eleventh-hour feeling of concluding. We do not learn the complete story of her life in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who in the past gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Cider House – I reread it together with this book – still stands up excellently, four decades later. So read the earlier work as an alternative: it’s much longer as the new novel, but far as enjoyable.