Queen Esther – Irving John (2025)

After forty years, John Irving returns to the world of his bestselling classic novel and Academy Award-winning film 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. Esther Nacht is born in Vienna in 1905. Her father dies aboard the ship to Portland, Maine, and her mother is murdered by anti-Semites in Portland. Dr. Larch knows it will not be easy to find a Jewish family to adopt Esther; in fact, he cannot find any family willing to adopt her. When Esther is fourteen and soon to become a ward of the state, Dr. Larch meets the Winslows, a philanthropic New England family with a history of fostering unadopted orphans. The Winslows are not Jewish, but they despise anti-Semitism. Esther’s gratitude to them is unending, and even as she retraces her roots to Vienna, she never stops loving and protecting the Winslows. In the final chapter, set in Jerusalem in 1981, Esther Nacht is seventy-six. John Irving’s sixteenth novel testifies to his enduring ability to weave complex characters and intricate narratives that challenge and captivate, exploring identity, belonging and the lasting impact of history on our personal lives.