Queen Esther by John Irving Review – An Underwhelming Sequel to His Classic Work

If certain authors enjoy an peak era, where they reach the pinnacle repeatedly, then U.S. writer John Irving’s lasted through a run of four fat, satisfying books, from his late-seventies success His Garp Novel to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were rich, funny, compassionate novels, connecting characters he calls “misfits” to cultural themes from feminism to abortion.

After Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing outcomes, save in word count. His most recent book, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages in length of themes Irving had explored more effectively in earlier books (inability to speak, dwarfism, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page script in the heart to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Thus we look at a new Irving with reservation but still a faint glimmer of hope, which shines stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages long – “goes back to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is among Irving’s top-tier works, taking place mostly in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

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

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored abortion and acceptance with richness, comedy and an total compassion. And it was a important novel because it moved past the topics that were becoming repetitive patterns in his works: grappling, wild bears, Austrian capital, the oldest profession.

This book begins in the imaginary community of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome 14-year-old orphan Esther from the orphanage. We are a a number of years ahead of the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor remains recognisable: still using ether, beloved by his nurses, starting every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in the book is restricted to these opening scenes.

The Winslows fret about bringing up Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a young Jewish female understand her place?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will join Haganah, the pro-Zionist paramilitary organisation whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would later establish the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are massive subjects to address, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s also not about the main character. For causes that must relate to narrative construction, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for one more of the couple's offspring, and gives birth to a baby boy, James, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this book is the boy's narrative.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both typical and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – Vienna; there’s talk of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a significant designation (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a more mundane persona than Esther hinted to be, and the minor players, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are underdeveloped too. There are several nice set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a confrontation where a handful of thugs get assaulted with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a nuanced writer, but that is isn't the issue. He has always restated his points, hinted at plot developments and allowed them to gather in the audience's mind before taking them to completion in lengthy, surprising, amusing moments. For instance, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to go missing: think of the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the finger in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces echo through the plot. In Queen Esther, a central figure loses an limb – but we just find out thirty pages the finish.

Esther reappears in the final part in the book, but only with a eleventh-hour feeling of concluding. We never do find out the full narrative of her time in the region. The book is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that His Classic Novel – I reread it together with this book – yet stands up excellently, after forty years. So choose it instead: it’s double the length as this book, but a dozen times as good.