Queen Esther by John Irving Review – A Letdown Sequel to The Cider House Rules

If some authors enjoy an golden era, where they hit the summit consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s ran through a run of several fat, rewarding books, from his 1978 hit The World According to Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were expansive, humorous, compassionate books, tying protagonists he calls “outsiders” to social issues from women's rights to termination.

After His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing outcomes, save in page length. His previous work, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages long of themes Irving had examined more skillfully in prior books (mutism, restricted growth, gender identity), with a lengthy screenplay in the middle to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Therefore we approach a latest Irving with care but still a tiny spark of hope, which shines stronger when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a just 432 pages long – “goes back to the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 book is among Irving’s very best books, located primarily in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored termination and belonging with vibrancy, comedy and an total understanding. And it was a important book because it left behind the themes that were becoming tiresome patterns in his works: wrestling, ursine creatures, Vienna, sex work.

Queen Esther begins in the fictional community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt teenage foundling Esther from the orphanage. We are a several generations prior to the storyline of Cider House, yet Dr Larch is still familiar: already dependent on the drug, beloved by his nurses, opening every talk with “In this place...” But his role in Queen Esther is limited to these opening scenes.

The couple are concerned about parenting Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist armed organisation whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently become the core of the IDF.

Those are huge subjects to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is hardly about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s even more disheartening that it’s additionally not about the titular figure. For motivations that must relate to narrative construction, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for one more of the couple's children, and bears to a son, James, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this novel is Jimmy’s narrative.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both typical and distinct. Jimmy moves to – where else? – Vienna; there’s mention of dodging the military conscription through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic name (the animal, meet the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, novelists and penises (Irving’s throughout).

Jimmy is a less interesting character than the female lead suggested to be, and the minor characters, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor Eissler, are one-dimensional too. There are a few enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a couple of thugs get battered with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a delicate writer, but that is not the difficulty. He has always repeated his ideas, telegraphed story twists and let them to gather in the reader’s thoughts before taking them to resolution in extended, jarring, amusing scenes. For instance, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to go missing: think of the oral part in Garp, the digit in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces resonate through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a key character loses an limb – but we just find out thirty pages later the finish.

Esther reappears in the final part in the novel, but only with a final impression of concluding. We never learn the complete narrative of her time in the region. This novel is a failure from a novelist who in the past gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading together with this novel – even now holds up excellently, four decades later. So pick up that instead: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but 12 times as good.