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After 40 years, John Irving revisits the setting of his classic novel, The Cider House Rules-the orphanage in St. Cloud's, Maine, where a Jewish girl, not yet four, is abandoned one winter night.
Esther Nacht is born in Vienna in 1905. Her father dies on board a ship from Bremerhaven to Portland, Maine; anti-Semites murder her mother in Portland. In the orphanage at St. Cloud's, it's clear to Dr. Larch that the abandoned child not only knows she's Jewish; she's familiar with the biblical Queen Esther she was named for. Dr. Larch knows it won't be easy to find a Jewish family to adopt Esther; he won't find any family who'll adopt her.
When Esther is fourteen, about to become a ward of the state, Dr. Larch meets the Winslows-a philanthropic family with a history of providing foster care for unadopted orphans. The Winslows aren't Jewish, but they detest anti-Semitism and like-minded prejudice. Esther's gratitude to the Winslows is unending. While she retraces her steps to her birth city, Esther never stops loving and protecting the Winslows-not even in Vienna.
In the final chapter of this historical novel-set in Jerusalem, in 1981-Esther Nacht is seventy-six. 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. In 1992, he was inducted into 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 In One Person. An international writer, his books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. A Prayer for Owen Meany is his best-selling novel, in every language. A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, John Irving lives in Toronto. Queen Esther is his sixteenth novel.
Esther Nacht is born in Vienna in 1905. Her father dies on board a ship from Bremerhaven to Portland, Maine; anti-Semites murder her mother in Portland. In the orphanage at St. Cloud's, it's clear to Dr. Larch that the abandoned child not only knows she's Jewish; she's familiar with the biblical Queen Esther she was named for. Dr. Larch knows it won't be easy to find a Jewish family to adopt Esther; he won't find any family who'll adopt her.
When Esther is fourteen, about to become a ward of the state, Dr. Larch meets the Winslows-a philanthropic family with a history of providing foster care for unadopted orphans. The Winslows aren't Jewish, but they detest anti-Semitism and like-minded prejudice. Esther's gratitude to the Winslows is unending. While she retraces her steps to her birth city, Esther never stops loving and protecting the Winslows-not even in Vienna.
In the final chapter of this historical novel-set in Jerusalem, in 1981-Esther Nacht is seventy-six. 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. In 1992, he was inducted into 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 In One Person. An international writer, his books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. A Prayer for Owen Meany is his best-selling novel, in every language. A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, John Irving lives in Toronto. Queen Esther is his sixteenth novel.