Queen Esther Review by John Irving – A Disappointing Companion to Cider House Rules | John Irving

IIf some writers go through an imperial phase, reaching the top again and again, American novelist John Irving had a series of four rich and satisfying novels, from 1978’s The World According to Garp to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. These books were generous, funny, big-hearted, linking characters he called “radicals” to social issues from feminism to abortion.

Since Owen Meany, returns have been decreasing, except for page length. His last novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of themes that Irving had explored better in his earlier books (mutism, dwarfism, transsexualism), with a 200-page screenplay in the middle to flesh them out—as if the filler was needed.

So we take the new Irving with caution but there’s still a small flame of hope, which burns hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – just 432 pages long – “returns to the world of Cider House Rules.” This 1985 novel is one of Irving’s best, and is set largely in an orphanage in St. Cloud, Maine, run by Dr. Wilbur Larch and his student Homer Wells.

In Cider House Rules, Irving wrote about abortion, belonging with color, comedy, and universal empathy. It was an important work because it left behind the themes that became disturbing cramps in his books: wrestling, bears, Vienna, prostitution.

Queen Esther begins in the fictional town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt 14-year-old orphan Esther from St. Cloud. We are only a few decades after the events of Cider House Rules, and yet Wilbur Larch remains recognizable: already addicted to the ether, adored by his nurses, and beginning every speech with “Here in St. Cloud…” But his appearance in Queen Esther is limited to these early scenes.

The Winslows are concerned about raising Esther well: she is Jewish, and “how can they help a young Jewish girl find herself?” To answer that, we fast forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. It would be part of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where it would become part of the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary organization whose “goal was to protect Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would later form the core of the Israel Defense Forces.

These are huge topics to address, but having presented them, Irving evades. Because if it’s disappointing that Queen Esther isn’t really about St. Cloud and Dr. L’Arche, it’s even more disappointing that it’s not really about Esther either. For reasons of plot engineering, Esther becomes a surrogate mother to another of the Winslows’ daughters, and gives birth to a baby boy, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the bulk of this novel is Jimmy’s story.

Here Irving’s obsessions return strongly, regularly and specifically. Jimmy moves to – where else? – Vienna; There is discussion of evading conscription in Vietnam through self-mutilation (Prayer for Owen Meany); A dog with a codename (Heavy Rain, Learn about Sadness from the New Hampshire Hotel); So are wrestling, prostitutes, books, and the penis (Irving passim).

Jimmy is a less interesting character than Esther promises, and secondary players, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Anneliese Isler, are also superficial. There are some great shots – Jimmy losing his virginity; A fight where two thugs are beaten with a crutch and a bike pump – but they are here and gone.

Irving was never a great writer, but that’s not the problem. He always reiterated his points, foretelling plot developments and allowing them to build up in the reader’s mind before coming to fruition in long, shocking and entertaining scenes. For example, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to disappear: think of the tongue in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. These absences resonate throughout the story. In Queen Esther, one of the main characters loses an arm – but we don’t find out until 30 pages before the end.

Esther returns late in the novel, but only with a last-minute sense of closure. We never know the full story of her life in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is disappointed in a writer who once gave such joy. This is the bad news. The good news is that Cider House Rules – reread alongside this novel – still holds up beautifully, 40 years later. So read this instead: It’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but 12 times better.