John Irving’s 16th novel, Queen Esther (2025), is a multi-generational, historical saga that marks a triumphant return to the orphanage setting of The Cider House Rules. The narrative follows Esther Nacht, a Viennese-born Jewish orphan whose life is profoundly shaped by antisemitism and a fierce commitment to her namesake—the biblical Queen Esther—who protected her people. […]
John Irving’s The Hotel New Hampshire, published in 1981, is a sprawling, darkly comedic, and eccentric family saga that explores the resilience of love, the necessity of illusions, and the chaotic nature of fate. Narrated by John Berry, the novel follows the unorthodox lives of the Berry family, led by their optimistic yet delusional father,
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A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a great example of a New England prep school story. It’s a coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of the early 1940s at the Devon School, an all-boys boarding school in New England, while World War II rages abroad. The story is narrated by Gene Forrester, who returns
