She Treads Softly: Queen Esther

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Queen Esther

Queen Esther by John Irving
11/4/25; 432 pages
Simon & Schuster

Queen Esther by John Irving is recommended only for fans of Irving. This time he tells the story of a fourteen-year-old Jewish orphan, Esther Nacht, who comes from the orphanage in St. Cloud’s, Maine (from The Cider House Rules) to live with Thomas and Constance Winslow and care for their youngest daughter, Honor, in New Hampshire. The bulk of the long-winded novel is ultimately the story of Honor's son James (Jimmy).

Irving covers many of the topics that one expects him to cover in a novel. These topics include: New Hampshire, great literature, religion, prep schools, family relationships, identity, sexuality, abortion, politics, cultural changes, etc., and anti-Semitism. Irving previously indicated that The Last Chairlift would be his last long novel and he should have held firm to that statement. I'll be honest, I had to force myself to keep reading this novel. The three star rating is to pay homage to Irving's body of work rather than a rating for this individual novel.

Queen Esther is recommended only for long time fans of Irving's work. Thanks to Simon & Schuster for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.