Queen Esther

by John Irving

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

This story about unbreakable bonds, coming-of-age, and the search for home stars Dr. Wilbur Larch — one of John Irving's most unforgettable characters.

Esther Nacht is born in Vienna in 1905. Her father dies on board the ship to Portland, Maine; her mother is murdered by anti-Semites in Portland. Dr. Larch knows it won't be easy to find a Jewish family to adopt Esther; in fact, he won't find any family who'll adopt her. When Esther is fourteen, Dr. Larch meets the Winslows, a New England family with a history of providing foster care for unadopted orphans. The Winslows aren't Jewish, but they despise anti-Semitism. Esther's gratitude for the Winslows is unending; even as she retraces her roots, she never stops loving and protecting them. In the final chapter, set in Jerusalem in 1981, Esther Nacht is seventy-six.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781420527445
Publisher:	Thorndike Press, A Cengage Group
Publication date:	11/26/2025
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	697
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 5.80(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven. He is a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 1980, Mr. Irving won a National Book Award for his novel The World According to Garp. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2013, he won a Lambda Literary Award for his novel In One Person. Internationally renowned, his novels have been translated into almost forty languages. His all-time bestselling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany. A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, John Irving lives in Toronto.

Hometown:

Vermont

Date of Birth:

March 2, 1942

Place of Birth:

Exeter, New Hampshire

Education:

B.A., University of New Hampshire, 1965; also studied at University of Vienna; M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop, 1967