Queen Esther by John Irving Evaluation – An Underwhelming Sequel to His Earlier Masterpiece

If some writers have an imperial era, where they reach the summit time after time, then U.S. author John Irving’s ran through a series of four substantial, gratifying works, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. Such were generous, funny, compassionate novels, linking characters he describes as “outsiders” to societal topics from feminism to abortion.

After A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, aside from in word count. His previous book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages in length of subjects Irving had delved into more skillfully in earlier books (mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a lengthy film script in the heart to fill it out – as if filler were needed.

So we come to a new Irving with care but still a small glimmer of optimism, which shines brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages long – “revisits the world of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is among Irving’s very best novels, located primarily in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

This novel is a failure from a novelist who in the past gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving wrote about termination and belonging with vibrancy, wit and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a important book because it abandoned the topics that were evolving into tiresome patterns in his books: wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

This book opens in the imaginary town of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in teenage ward the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a a number of decades ahead of the storyline of Cider House, yet the doctor stays identifiable: even then dependent on the drug, beloved by his nurses, starting every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in this novel is limited to these early sections.

The Winslows fret about bringing up Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a young girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist militant force whose “purpose was to defend Jewish communities from opposition” and which would eventually become the core of the Israel's military.

These are huge themes to address, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is hardly about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s still more upsetting that it’s additionally not about the titular figure. For reasons that must connect to plot engineering, Esther becomes a gestational carrier for another of the Winslows’ offspring, and delivers to a male child, the boy, in the early forties – and the majority of this story is his narrative.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both typical and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of avoiding the draft notice through self-harm (Owen Meany); a dog with a significant title (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a more mundane character than Esther promised to be, and the supporting figures, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are underdeveloped also. There are some enjoyable episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a couple of bullies get assaulted with a support and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a subtle author, but that is is not the issue. He has consistently restated his ideas, telegraphed plot developments and allowed them to accumulate in the viewer's thoughts before leading them to completion in extended, surprising, funny sequences. For instance, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to disappear: think of the speech organ in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses reverberate through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a central figure loses an upper extremity – but we just learn 30 pages the conclusion.

Esther comes back in the final part in the novel, but just with a eleventh-hour sense of wrapping things up. We do not do find out the full narrative of her experiences in Palestine and Israel. This novel is a letdown from a author who previously gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The upside is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading together with this work – even now remains excellently, after forty years. So choose that as an alternative: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as good.