John Irving's Queen Esther Analysis – A Disappointing Follow-up to His Classic Work

If a few authors enjoy an peak era, where they reach the heights repeatedly, then American writer John Irving’s extended through a series of four fat, satisfying works, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were rich, funny, big-hearted works, tying protagonists he calls “outliers” to societal topics from feminism to reproductive rights.

After Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing results, aside from in word count. His last book, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages long of topics Irving had explored better in earlier works (selective mutism, restricted growth, gender identity), with a two-hundred-page script in the center to fill it out – as if padding were required.

So we approach a latest Irving with care but still a faint spark of expectation, which burns stronger when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages in length – “revisits the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 work is among Irving’s very best books, taking place mostly in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

The book is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such joy

In Cider House, Irving wrote about termination and acceptance with vibrancy, humor and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a major novel because it moved past the subjects that were evolving into tiresome habits in his books: grappling, bears, Vienna, the oldest profession.

The novel starts in the fictional village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple welcome young foundling the title character from the orphanage. We are a few years before the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch is still familiar: still dependent on anesthetic, adored by his staff, starting every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in this novel is limited to these early sections.

The couple worry about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a adolescent Jewish female discover her identity?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Zionist militant group whose “mission was to protect Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently establish the core of the Israel's military.

Such are huge topics to take on, but having presented them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not actually about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s additionally not really concerning the titular figure. For reasons that must involve story mechanics, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for a different of the couple's offspring, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this story is the boy's story.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both typical and distinct. Jimmy goes to – naturally – the city; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a dog with a significant name (the dog's name, remember the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, sex workers, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a more mundane character than Esther suggested to be, and the secondary characters, such as students the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are flat too. There are several amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a few thugs get beaten with a support and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle author, but that is isn't the problem. He has consistently repeated his ideas, telegraphed plot developments and let them to gather in the audience's thoughts before taking them to resolution in extended, surprising, funny scenes. For example, in Irving’s books, body parts tend to disappear: think of the tongue in The Garp Novel, the digit in His Owen Book. Those losses reverberate through the story. In Queen Esther, a major character suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we only find out 30 pages the conclusion.

The protagonist comes back toward the end in the book, but merely with a final sense of ending the story. We not once learn the entire narrative of her experiences in Palestine and Israel. The book is a failure from a writer who once gave such delight. That’s the downside. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it alongside this novel – even now stands up beautifully, four decades later. So choose it instead: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but a dozen times as enjoyable.