🔗 Share this article

If certain writers enjoy an peak period, where they hit the summit consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s extended through a sequence of four long, rewarding novels, from his late-seventies success His Garp Novel to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were expansive, witty, compassionate books, connecting figures he calls “misfits” to social issues from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, save in size. His previous book, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages long of topics Irving had delved into more skillfully in earlier books (selective mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a lengthy screenplay in the middle to extend it – as if filler were needed.

Thus we come to a latest Irving with reservation but still a tiny glimmer of optimism, which glows hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties novel is part of Irving’s very best novels, set mostly in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who once gave such delight

In The Cider House Rules, Irving wrote about abortion and acceptance with richness, humor and an total empathy. And it was a major book because it left behind the themes that were turning into annoying patterns in his books: wrestling, wild bears, Vienna, prostitution.

The novel opens in the imaginary town of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome teenage ward Esther from St Cloud's home. We are a several generations before the action of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch is still identifiable: already dependent on the drug, adored by his caregivers, opening every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in this novel is confined to these opening sections.

The Winslows fret about raising Esther well: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will become part of Haganah, the Zionist armed force whose “goal was to protect Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would eventually establish the foundation of the IDF.

Such are enormous topics to take on, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not actually about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s likewise not focused on the main character. For motivations that must involve story mechanics, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for one more of the Winslows’ children, and delivers to a baby boy, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this story is the boy's tale.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both typical and specific. Jimmy moves to – of course – the city; there’s mention of evading the draft notice through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a dog with a significant title (Hard Rain, remember the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a more mundane figure than the heroine promised to be, and the supporting players, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are underdeveloped as well. There are several amusing set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a few ruffians get assaulted with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a nuanced novelist, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has consistently repeated his arguments, hinted at narrative turns and enabled them to gather in the audience's mind before taking them to resolution in lengthy, shocking, amusing scenes. For instance, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to be lost: think of the speech organ in Garp, the digit in His Owen Book. Those losses resonate through the plot. In the book, a central person is deprived of an arm – but we just learn 30 pages before the finish.

Esther returns in the final part in the book, but only with a last-minute sense of concluding. We not once do find out the entire narrative of her time in the region. Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who once gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading in parallel to this book – yet holds up wonderfully, four decades later. So pick up it instead: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as enjoyable.