"So we approach a new Irving with caution but still a small flame of hope, which burns hotter when we learn that Queen Esther a mere 432 pages returns to the world of The Cider House Rules. That 1985 novel is one of Irving's very best, set largely in an orphanage in St Cloud's, Maine, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells. In The Cider House Rules, Irving wrote about abortion and belonging with colour, comedy and an all-encompassing empathy."
"Queen Esther opens in the fictional town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt 14-year-old orphan Esther from St Cloud's. We are a few decades before the action of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch remains recognisable: already addicted to ether, adored by his nurses, starting every speech with Here in St Cloud's But his appearance in Queen Esther is limited to these early scenes."
A celebrated stretch of four expansive, generous works once established a high point featuring outlier characters tied to social issues like feminism and abortion. Later output showed diminishing returns despite growing page counts; a 2022 effort reached 900 pages and included a 200‑page screenplay that felt like padding. Queen Esther returns to the St Cloud's/Cider House Rules milieu, beginning with a fourteen‑year‑old Jewish orphan adopted in Penacook and briefly revisiting Dr Wilbur Larch. The narrative leans on recycled motifs and structural padding and ultimately fails to recapture the earlier warmth, wit and moral clarity.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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