🔗 Share this article

If some authors enjoy an peak era, in which they achieve the heights time after time, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a series of several substantial, satisfying books, from his late-seventies breakthrough Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Those were expansive, witty, warm novels, connecting characters he refers to as “outliers” to social issues from feminism to abortion.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning outcomes, save in size. His most recent work, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of themes Irving had delved into more effectively in earlier novels (mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page script in the middle to extend it – as if padding were needed.

Therefore we approach a new Irving with care but still a small flame of expectation, which glows stronger when we learn that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages in length – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is part of Irving’s top-tier works, taking place mostly in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who once gave such pleasure

In Cider House, Irving explored abortion and acceptance with vibrancy, wit and an total compassion. And it was a significant work because it moved past the themes that were evolving into repetitive habits in his books: grappling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, sex work.

Queen Esther opens in the made-up community of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple take in teenage orphan Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a a number of years prior to the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays recognisable: already addicted to anesthetic, beloved by his caregivers, opening every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in this novel is confined to these initial parts.

The Winslows worry about raising Esther well: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist armed force whose “purpose was to protect Jewish towns from opposition” and which would eventually become the foundation of the IDF.

These are huge themes to address, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not really about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s even more disheartening that it’s likewise not focused on Esther. For motivations that must connect to plot engineering, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for a different of the Winslows’ children, and bears to a male child, the boy, in the early forties – and the majority of this book is the boy's narrative.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both regular and particular. Jimmy moves to – naturally – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of avoiding the draft notice through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a significant name (Hard Rain, meet the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a duller persona than Esther suggested to be, and the minor characters, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are underdeveloped as well. There are some nice episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a few ruffians get beaten with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle writer, but that is is not the issue. He has repeatedly reiterated his arguments, foreshadowed story twists and enabled them to gather in the viewer's mind before bringing them to fruition in lengthy, jarring, funny sequences. For example, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to disappear: recall the oral part in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces resonate through the plot. In this novel, a central character loses an limb – but we merely discover thirty pages later the end.

The protagonist returns late in the story, but only with a last-minute impression of ending the story. We do not learn the entire account of her life in the region. The book is a letdown from a writer who once gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it in parallel to this book – yet stands up excellently, after forty years. So choose the earlier work as an alternative: it’s double the length as this book, but a dozen times as great.