John Irving's Queen Esther Analysis – A Disappointing Companion to His Classic Work

If some writers have an imperial phase, where they hit the heights repeatedly, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a run of four substantial, gratifying works, from his late-seventies hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. Such were rich, witty, big-hearted books, connecting characters he calls “misfits” to cultural themes from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, except in page length. His previous work, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages long of topics Irving had explored better in prior works (inability to speak, dwarfism, trans issues), with a 200-page film script in the heart to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Thus we come to a recent Irving with caution but still a small glimmer of expectation, which shines stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is part of Irving’s very best books, located primarily in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

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

In Cider House, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and identity with colour, wit and an total compassion. And it was a major work because it abandoned the subjects that were turning into repetitive habits in his works: the sport of wrestling, ursine creatures, Austrian capital, prostitution.

Queen Esther begins in the made-up community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in 14-year-old orphan the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a a number of generations before the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor remains identifiable: even then using the drug, respected by his staff, opening every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is restricted to these opening scenes.

The couple are concerned about raising Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a young Jewish girl find herself?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will enter Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently form the foundation of the IDF.

These are massive themes to address, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not actually about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s additionally not really concerning Esther. For reasons that must involve story mechanics, Esther becomes a gestational carrier for one more of the couple's children, and gives birth to a baby boy, James, in 1941 – and the majority of this story is the boy's tale.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both regular and particular. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of avoiding the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a canine with a significant name (the animal, recall the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, authors and penises (Irving’s passim).

The character is a duller persona than Esther hinted to be, and the minor characters, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are flat also. There are a few enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a few ruffians get assaulted with a crutch and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a subtle author, but that is is not the problem. He has repeatedly repeated his points, telegraphed story twists and allowed them to build up in the reader’s thoughts before taking them to completion in lengthy, jarring, funny sequences. For instance, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to disappear: remember the tongue in Garp, the finger in His Owen Book. Those absences echo through the plot. In this novel, a key person suffers the loss of an limb – but we merely learn 30 pages the finish.

The protagonist comes back late in the novel, but merely with a last-minute impression of ending the story. We do not discover the full account of her time in the Middle East. This novel is a letdown from a novelist who once gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that Cider House – upon rereading in parallel to this work – still remains excellently, after forty years. So choose the earlier work as an alternative: it’s much longer as the new novel, but a dozen times as great.