Esther Nacht was made an orphan when her mother was killed. When she ends up at St. Cloud's Orphanage, Wilbur Larch knows he's going to struggle to find a family to adopt a Jewish child. Luckily, the Winslow family is willing to offer the girl a home, little realising the impact she will have on their youngest daughter.
I've been a fan of John Irving for over forty years, and although I've not enjoyed his more recent novels as much as I do his earlier ones, I still rejoiced at the thought of a new novel. I was even more overjoyed to discover that Queen Esther is a sequel to The Cider House Rules. In preparation, I reread The Cider House Rules (you can find my review here).
Unfortunately, there is very little connecting the two novels, and this wouldn't be an ideal book for anyone new to Irving's work. Lots of the themes from the author's earlier works feature. Family relationships, sexuality, women's reproductive rights, war, wrestling, writing, and Vienna are just some of the many topics that feature. Anyone picking up the book because it's a sequel will be bitterly disappointed as St. Cloud's and Wilbur Larch only appear briefly, having little impact on the story.
Father/son relationships feature heavily in earlier novels. Family dynamics are the central core of this novel, but this time around it's the mother/son relationship that is important. We see how giving birth to a child doesn't necessarily make you maternal, and that many mothers are willing to go to any lengths to protect their child.
The narrative has all the hallmarks of Irving's earlier writing; minute details of characters which really bring them to life and prose which seems to go off at a tangent, only to circle back to the original point. The array of characters is vast and unique. However, there is far too much repetitiveness, and this impedes the flow of the story. As I read, part of me kept thinking that important details were building up for a dramatic conclusion. Regrettably, this wasn't the case, and the story just fizzled out.
If you haven't read anything by John Irving, I wouldn't recommend starting with this novel. I'd suggest starting with A Prayer For Owen Meany (my personal favourite), The World According To Garp or The Cider House Rules. While they are decades old, they are still relevant today and pack a punch.
Author Details
John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. He has been nominated for a National Book Award three times-winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. He also received an O. Henry Award, in 1981, for the short story "Interior Space." In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules-a film with seven Academy Award nominations. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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