John Irving's Queen Esther Analysis – An Underwhelming Sequel to The Cider House Rules

If a few authors experience an imperial phase, where they achieve the heights time after time, then American writer John Irving’s ran through a series of four fat, rewarding books, from his late-seventies hit Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Such were rich, funny, compassionate novels, linking protagonists he calls “outliers” to societal topics from feminism to abortion.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been declining results, save in size. His previous novel, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages of themes Irving had examined more skillfully in earlier books (selective mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page film script in the center to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

So we look at a latest Irving with care but still a small flame of optimism, which shines hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages long – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is part of Irving’s finest works, taking place mostly in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

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

In Cider House, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and belonging with colour, wit and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a significant work because it left behind the themes that were turning into annoying patterns in his novels: grappling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

This book starts in the fictional village of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple take in teenage foundling the title character from the orphanage. We are a a number of years prior to the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor remains familiar: even then addicted to anesthetic, beloved by his caregivers, beginning every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in this novel is restricted to these opening scenes.

The couple fret about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a adolescent Jewish girl find herself?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be a member of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will join the Haganah, the pro-Zionist paramilitary organisation whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish towns from opposition” and which would eventually form the core of the IDF.

These are huge themes to take on, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not really about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s additionally not about the titular figure. For motivations that must connect to plot engineering, Esther becomes a substitute parent for one more of the family's children, and gives birth to a male child, James, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this book is the boy's narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both common and particular. Jimmy moves to – naturally – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of dodging the draft notice through self-harm (Owen Meany); a dog with a significant name (Hard Rain, recall Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

Jimmy is a duller character than Esther promised to be, and the supporting figures, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are flat also. There are some nice episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a handful of bullies get assaulted with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a delicate author, but that is not the issue. He has consistently reiterated his arguments, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to build up in the viewer's mind before leading them to resolution in long, jarring, amusing sequences. For instance, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to be lost: think of the speech organ in Garp, the digit in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces reverberate through the story. In this novel, a major figure is deprived of an arm – but we just learn 30 pages later the conclusion.

Esther reappears in the final part in the book, but just with a last-minute sense of concluding. We not once do find out the entire account of her life in the region. This novel is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The upside is that Cider House – revisiting it in parallel to this novel – yet stands up beautifully, four decades later. So read the earlier work instead: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but 12 times as great.