Irving’s New England return feels like disjointed parody

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/01/2026 (267 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You can’t go home again, Thomas Wolfe said.

Apparently, you also can’t go back to St. Cloud’s Orphanage, the setting of John Irving’s beloved 1985 novel The Cider House Rules — at least not in any satisfying way.

Queen Esther, the American-Canadian author’s latest book, has a tantalizing connection to that storied locale in Maine, home of orphan Homer Wells and Dr. Wilbur Larch, an ether-addicted, abortion-providing physician. (The Cider House Rules was made into a 1999 movie, starring Tobey Maguire and Michael Caine.)

St. Cloud’s is where the Esther of the title was dropped off as an infant by two antisemitic townspeople after her mother — a Jewish immigrant from Vienna — was murdered. The child grows up there, beloved by all the orphaned boys and girls, as well as the staff.

Sadly, however, we only visit Dr. Larch for a chapter before Irving meanders his way off in all directions, to paraphrase Stephen Leacock.

Adopted as a teen to serve as a nanny by the book-loving Winslows, Constance and Thomas, Esther grows up with the family in New Hampshire and forms a tight bond with her charge, the couple’s youngest daughter, Honor.

So tight, in fact, that she will later take a break from her mysterious life in Israel — Esther has embraced her Jewish roots with secular fever but made it her private business — to give birth to a baby for the asexual Honor, who wants nothing to do with penises. (This latter fact is talked about at length, no pun intended, by her sisters in a way that doesn’t feel in any way realistic, especially for the 1920s, the time period in which this portion of the book is set.)

The boy, Jimmy, grows up to be a writer, following his birth mother’s journey back to Austria; Esther essentially drops out of the story for much of the middle section. This isn’t much of a loss, because despite Irving’s attempts to make her a figure of mythical proportions, he gives the reader no insight into her inner life whatsoever.

All the Irving touchstones are here: Vienna, wrestling, New England, abortion, chosen families.

But the way the 83-year-old novelist employs his well-worn tricks this time is all wrong: Queen Esther often reads like a John Irving parody. The final third is almost unreadable, owing to its disjointed construction and repetitive nature.

At 400-plus pages, the novel cries out for an editor to give the raggedy narrative some shape, to cull to the unnecessary, unseemly digressions — including those into the pros and cons of circumcision and bras (don’t ask) — to trim the endless, maddening repetition of first names, to work in the historical detail in a way that doesn’t read like a Wikipedia entry plunked down in the middle of the narrative.

Irving is known for what some might call heavy-handed foreshadowing (think “the Shot” in 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany) but it’s usually a signature part of his style — an enjoyable motif of catchphrases and winks at what’s to come.

Here, however, most of the first third of the book merely comes off as a collection of possible hints at a future climactic event, without much of a plot to tie them together. It’s very difficult to stay invested in these flimsy characters.

And although it’s certainly not meant to be, the way Irving constantly refers to Esther’s heritage — and Jewishness in general — feels weirdly fetishized and awkward, like someone at great pains to point out how many of his good friends are Jewish; it’s deeply uncomfortable.

Unlike The Cider House Rules, Queen Esther is not destined to be anyone’s favourite John Irving novel.

Jill Wilson is the Free Press arts and life editor.