🔗 Share this article

If certain authors have an imperial phase, in which they reach the heights time after time, then American author John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of several substantial, rewarding works, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. These were expansive, witty, warm books, linking protagonists he describes as “misfits” to cultural themes from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, save in word count. His previous work, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of themes Irving had delved into better in earlier novels (selective mutism, restricted growth, gender identity), with a lengthy film script in the center to fill it out – as if padding were needed.

So we approach a latest Irving with care but still a small spark of hope, which burns stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a just four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 work is among Irving’s finest novels, set largely in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his protege Homer.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who previously gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored abortion and identity with vibrancy, wit and an total compassion. And it was a important novel because it abandoned the topics that were evolving into repetitive habits in his books: grappling, wild bears, Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book begins in the imaginary community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt teenage orphan the title character from the orphanage. We are a a number of generations prior to the action of Cider House, yet the doctor stays recognisable: even then addicted to anesthetic, respected by his caregivers, opening every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in Queen Esther is confined to these opening parts.

The family worry about parenting Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish female understand her place?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will join Haganah, the Zionist armed group whose “goal was to defend Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would eventually become the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are massive subjects to address, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is hardly about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s still more disappointing that it’s likewise not really concerning the titular figure. For reasons that must involve story mechanics, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for one more of the family's daughters, and delivers to a male child, the boy, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this story is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy goes to – naturally – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of dodging the military conscription through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a dog with a significant title (the dog's name, recall the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, writers and penises (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a less interesting persona than the heroine promised to be, and the secondary figures, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are several amusing scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a few bullies get assaulted with a support and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced novelist, but that is is not the difficulty. He has always restated his arguments, telegraphed narrative turns and let them to build up in the reader’s imagination before leading them to resolution in lengthy, jarring, amusing scenes. For case, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to be lost: think of the oral part in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses resonate through the story. In this novel, a major character suffers the loss of an arm – but we only discover thirty pages the end.

She returns in the final part in the novel, but merely with a last-minute sense of wrapping things up. We do not discover the complete story of her time in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a letdown from a author who in the past gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The good news is that His Classic Novel – I reread it alongside this book – yet remains beautifully, four decades later. So read the earlier work as an alternative: it’s twice as long as this book, but far as great.