Irving returns to the world of his classic novel, The Cider House Rules, revisiting the orphanage in St. Cloud’s, Maine, where Dr. Wilbur Larch takes in Esther—a Viennese-born Jew whose life is shaped by anti-Semitism.
The fact that Queen Esther isn’t a masterpiece seems neither surprising nor, frankly, the point. What’s most wonderful about Queen Esther is that it returns us to the St. Cloud’s orphanage immortalized in Irving’s magnificent 1985 novel, The Cider House Rules ... Offers as many false starts as spring in Maine ... In the basement of this book, there’s a thrilling story about a woman fighting for the establishment and then the defense of the modern state of Israel ... This may be a story about the education of a novelist, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel that struggles so long to cohere. That failing feels all the more disappointing considering the masterful structure of The Cider House Rules, which, despite a long, lumpy plot, always finds its way home ... Flawed.
His latest lacks the addictive propulsion of [his] early novels and is plagued by an at-times infuriating repetition, but I couldn’t help rooting for it anyway. I needed this dose of old-school New England decency. Few skewer sanctimony quite like Irving at his best. More important: I fell in love, once again, with his people ... I’m grateful for this book, imperfections and all.
The themes of Queen Esther will be familiar to Mr. Irving’s many readers, who will also recognize his habit of intertwining fiction with personal history ... The reappearance of Esther gives the tale another twist, taking Jimmy to the heart of things. He has traveled a long way from Pennacook to experience his epiphany, one day in Jerusalem.
