🔗 Share this article

If some writers enjoy an imperial era, in which they achieve the summit time after time, then U.S. author John Irving’s lasted through a series of four fat, rewarding works, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were expansive, witty, big-hearted books, tying figures he describes as “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, save in size. His last book, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages long of themes Irving had delved into better in prior novels (inability to speak, short stature, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the center to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

Thus we look at a latest Irving with care but still a small flame of hope, which glows hotter when we learn that His Queen Esther Novel – a just four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is one of Irving’s very best books, located largely in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Wells.

This novel is a letdown from a writer who previously gave such pleasure

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed abortion and belonging with richness, comedy and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a important book because it moved past the themes that were turning into tiresome patterns in his works: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, Vienna, prostitution.

The novel starts in the fictional community of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple take in teenage orphan Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a few generations ahead of the action of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch stays identifiable: still using the drug, adored by his caregivers, starting every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in Queen Esther is confined to these initial sections.

The couple are concerned about parenting Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a young Jewish female discover her identity?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Zionist armed organisation whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would eventually become the core of the IDF.

Those are enormous themes to tackle, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s likewise not really concerning Esther. For causes that must relate to plot engineering, Esther becomes a substitute parent for a different of the family's children, and gives birth to a son, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this novel is his story.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and particular. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a canine with a meaningful name (the dog's name, recall the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s passim).

The character is a duller character than Esther suggested to be, and the secondary characters, such as pupils Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are flat as well. There are several amusing set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of bullies get assaulted with a crutch and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a subtle writer, but that is is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly repeated his arguments, foreshadowed narrative turns and enabled them to accumulate in the viewer's imagination before taking them to fruition in long, surprising, funny sequences. For example, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to be lost: recall the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those absences reverberate through the narrative. In the book, a major figure is deprived of an arm – but we merely discover thirty pages before the end.

The protagonist returns in the final part in the story, but just with a final sense of ending the story. We not once discover the entire narrative of her time in the region. This novel is a disappointment from a novelist who once gave such joy. That’s the downside. The good news is that His Classic Novel – revisiting it alongside this book – still stands up beautifully, 40 years on. So pick up that instead: it’s double the length as this book, but far as great.