🔗 Share this article

If a few novelists experience an imperial phase, in which they achieve the summit consistently, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a series of four long, gratifying novels, from his late-seventies hit Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Those were expansive, humorous, compassionate books, linking figures he calls “outliers” to social issues from gender equality to abortion.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning returns, save in word count. His last book, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of subjects Irving had explored better in earlier novels (mutism, restricted growth, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the heart to extend it – as if padding were needed.

So we approach a new Irving with reservation but still a faint spark of hope, which glows hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages long – “revisits the world of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is part of Irving’s very best books, set largely in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

This novel is a failure from a writer who previously gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored termination and belonging with richness, wit and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a major work because it moved past the topics that were evolving into annoying habits in his works: grappling, ursine creatures, Vienna, prostitution.

The novel begins in the fictional village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple adopt teenage ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a a number of decades prior to the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch remains identifiable: already using ether, adored by his nurses, opening every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is restricted to these early parts.

The family fret about raising Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a young Jewish girl understand her place?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will join the Haganah, the Zionist militant organisation whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish towns from opposition” and which would eventually become the core of the IDF.

These are huge subjects to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that Queen Esther is hardly about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s even more disheartening that it’s additionally not focused on the main character. For reasons that must involve story mechanics, Esther turns into a substitute parent for another of the couple's children, and delivers to a baby boy, the boy, in World War II era – and the majority of this story is his story.

And now is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both regular and specific. Jimmy moves to – of course – Vienna; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a canine with a meaningful designation (the dog's name, meet Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

Jimmy is a more mundane persona than the heroine suggested to be, and the supporting characters, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped also. There are several amusing scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a handful of ruffians get battered with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a subtle author, but that is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly reiterated his points, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to accumulate in the viewer's imagination before leading them to resolution in lengthy, jarring, funny scenes. For example, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to disappear: recall the tongue in The Garp Novel, the finger in His Owen Book. Those absences reverberate through the narrative. In the book, a key person suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we merely discover thirty pages later the end.

The protagonist comes back late in the novel, but merely with a final impression of ending the story. We do not learn the complete story of her experiences in the region. The book is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that Cider House – upon rereading alongside this book – yet remains excellently, 40 years on. So choose that instead: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but 12 times as enjoyable.