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Welcome book nerds. It is the end of November, which means, I don't know, the trees are now they finally. The last tree in my backyard finally let go of the ghost, the silver maple. So I got them all picked up. But I love watching the colors change. And I love listening to the sound of, I don't know, leaves skittering across the pavement in the wind. It sounds. There's just something sort of romantic about fall, even if, as it comes to an end and the Minnesota hellish winter is coming. So.
A
Well, your trees are. This is Charlie Gibson, by the way. Kate's allowed me to add a word here. Your trees are already barren in Minnesota, I'm looking out the window. And in Seattle, we have a symphony of colors. Still, it is a beautiful fall. And I do love fall. I don't want climate. I want weather. And I like it when the seasons change. You want to. It just gives you a. I don't know, it's a nice feeling. I remember the first time I went to California. I got off the plane and I looked around and somebody said to me, isn't this great? It's like this 361 days a year, Southern California. And I said, well, God bless them. I'm glad they enjoy it. I want weather instead.
B
I don't think they know it's Christmas unless they tie the red bows around the palm trees. And then it's like, oh, it's Christmas time. Right. I forgot.
A
Right? That's right. The red bows are there.
C
Yes.
A
I want to make a mention of the fact that we skipped a week, and I apologize. We just got sort of overwhelmed, and we haven't done that in a long time. And we won't do it again, I hope, for a long, long time. So it was nice enough to have Kathryn Newman up for two weeks with her book rec, but we lost some momentum there. And I apologize for the fact that we didn't do a podcast last week. But this week, this week we've got John Irving, the wonderful John Irving, who has a new book, Queen Esther. Before we get to that, there's one other thing I want to mention, which is that an event this week that involves this podcast, we got renewed for another year. Yeah. ABC underwrites this podcast. They've renewed us for year five. And I love doing this with you, kiddo. I don't want to get too genuine about the father daughter business, but I. It's, it's, it's a great, it's a great treat. It's a great treat to do this.
B
It's always good when your broadcaster says, I don't want to get too genuine. That always feels good, doesn't it? You know, I love this job. Every day is like Christmas. And I make. I have a list of gratitudes, a list of thank yous that I give every night before I go to bed. And this job is always on it. It never gets old getting a package with a new book in there. It never gets old meeting an author, picking their brain, and really getting into why they made the choices that they made. I always think of great books as, like, a great book is where you really, for me, it's when you want to sit down and talk to the author and find out about why they made all the decisions they made, because you're just so fascinated by the way the author's mind works. And I get to do that every week. How cool is that?
A
Yeah, it is cool. It really is cool. And as we've always said, this has become sort of a. A masterclass in writing. Not only do we get to talk about the books themselves, but talk to the authors about how they do what they do, for which I have such great admiration. Okay, Kate, now to John Irving.
B
And Kate, John Irving. It was great to talk to him, and I love that he defines his work as largely historical fiction. I'm not sure I agree with that. When I walk into the bookstore and I see a table of historical fiction, it's always women walking away from you, often with suitcases, with the back of their hair all coiffed. And that's what I think of as rhetorical fiction. So John, in some ways defies definition. And yet there are so many signature themes, so many notes that he often hits in his work that it's easy to identify his work. And this book has some of all the greatest hits, but it is so good. I really enjoyed this book. It felt like coming home to me.
A
That's. That's absolutely right. You get in the middle of the book or 50 pages in, 60 pages in, and you think, oh, yeah, I'm in a John Irving novel. And it is, you're right. It is absolutely different. And as we will discuss in our conversation that you're going to hear in a Moment. John has a way of bringing you into a world. If you think about it, it's not logical.
B
Some of it's downright weird. Like sometimes you're in the world and you're like, this would be weird if it wasn't a John Irving novel.
A
Yes, exactly, exactly. Esther wants a line from Charlotte Bronte tattooed across her chest and you think, yeah, sure, why not? John, as always, is writing about, well, his constant themes about orphans, about abortion. And this one goes back to Cider House Rules, back to the, the St. Cloud orphanage in Maine that was the center of Cider House Rules. And Queen Esther is a 15 year old young Jewish woman whose parents are gone. Dr. Larch doesn't think anybody will adopt her, but the Winslow family does. And they want her as a nanny for their youngest daughter, Honor. And eventually Honor wants a child, but she doesn't want to go through sex. And so Queen Esther volunteers to have the child for her. So you have this constant theme of John's, of what's a family? And is the child Jewish? Because yes, it's a Jewish mother, but she's raised by Honor Winslow. Esther gives the child to Honor, so what's the family? And then Jimmy Winslow, who is the. Well, I won't go into how he gets into it, but he's really the main protagonist in the novel and Honor wants him to get out of the Vietnam War. So knock somebody up, Jimmy, you know, have a child. It'll get you out of the draft.
B
And in some ways, Jimmy Winslow reminds me of one of my favorite John Irving narrators. In fact, my favorite John Irving narrator, Johnny Wheelwright, who also avoids Vietnam. And is Jimmy Winslow. Yes, in Fair Fro and Meanie. And Johnny Wheelwright is also a writer, as is Jimmy Winslow.
A
John gets a writer in every one of his books. And guess why? It's because John's working through his own thoughts.
B
I wonder too sometimes, you know, again, just talking about returning home to John Irving, how many people on the east coast say goodnight to their sons by saying goodnight, you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England.
A
New England.
B
It feels like settling up in, in the fire in a winter night and reading John Irving. This book. It's weird, it's quirky, but it's warm and wonderful.
A
It's the wonderful line that Dr. Large says to all the orphans at the St. Cloud Orphanage in Maine that you heard Insider House Rules. And as we talked to John, we could see him. I didn't realize he had that phrase tattooed on his forearm. And it is, it's A wonderful, wonderful phrase, and I think a lot of people use it as they say goodnight to their kids.
B
Yeah.
A
Anyway, Queen Esther is a wonderful novel. It is a John Irving novel. You thought. And I'll. We'll get to it in a minute. We're prattling on here. But you felt that the New York Times wrote the quintessential review of this book.
B
I do. I do sometimes. I'm sorry. New York Times. I read you. I'm religious about you. I read you every day. But I don't always love your book reviews because sometimes we get to the end of the book review and I go, I don't understand. Did you like the book? Did you not like the book? I love this John Irving review. I forwarded it to my father. It talked about the fact that nobody dethrones the sanctimonious like John. And he's right. And he talks about how this book felt like a return to all of the great John Irving novels of old, which, again, occasionally a bear just sort of will walk through the background of like, you know, John's Hotel, New Hampshire. Right. It's just. He just writes the weird so wonderfully that it becomes the mainstream. I love his writing and I love talking to him. And I know you feel some responsibility when we talk to him because he's a friend.
A
Oh, he is a friend. He became a friend through the interviews that we did on Good Morning America. No, he's a. He's a wonderful, wonderful thinker, I think, in many, many respects, and has a wonderful way, as I say, of. Of just making you comfortable in his novels. As I was. As I read Queen Esther, our discussion with John Irving. John Irving, it is a great pleasure to have you back in the bookcase. It is a treat to be in the midst of a John Irving novel. The new one, Queen Esther. Both Kate and I loved it. The last time we talked, you told us I'm getting old. No more long novels. I have shorter stories in mind. I almost think of them as novellas. Well, Queen Esther, John is 400 pages. That's a novella to you.
C
No, it's a novella to me. I mean, I realize that 400 pages is a little longer than average for a literary novel these days, but you'll have to agree, Charlie, that it's a much shorter novel for me. The last chairlift was over 1200 pages, so, you know, this. This was decidedly a shorter novel for me. It looks like a novel of normal length. Let's. Let's put it that way. I do think that the One after it, or maybe the. The ones after it. I. I'm pretty sure they are very much shorter, that is shorter than Queen Esther, which is why I did Queen Esther first. You know, the. The history. And as you know, I. Many, at least half of my novels are historical, beginning with the first one. I like historical novels, but they come with parameters. You have to be accurate to time and place. For example, it isn't good enough that I remember very well my own experience in Israel in the 1980s and remember very well who I was with and their conversations. Because so much of what was being said was new to me, I paid attention, I had no doubt, of my memory of the dialogue that was either said to me or that I distinctly overheard. I wrote it down to teach myself. I certainly was not thinking at the time in 1981 of a novel I would write 43 or more later, years later. But I was learning. I was learning new things. I was hearing things. For the first time, I had no doubt that I was right about what I heard. But what you don't know in the history of a time and place that you weren't born in or you didn't grow up in, is if what you heard was commonly being said at that time, or if something you distinctly did hear was nonetheless an aberration at that time. You better know the difference, because if you're claiming it as history in a novel, it ain't good enough that it happened to you. It had to be happening all the time. So that what needed verification, why I knew from the moment I started writing this novel that I would have to go back to Israel, was not only to fill in the visual details, because the visual details are gone. There was a great moment in the Muslim quarter when I was passing an ATM machine and the person I was with said, no, that wasn't here. And then there was a pause and she added, and it likely wasn't here when the Romans built the old city. I said, yeah, okay, right, I got that.
B
But was that the diving board for you for this novel, for Queen Esther? Was the trip to Israel really the initial seed that was planted? And how did that then get mixed up with a revisit to st. Cloud and Dr. Larch?
C
Well, I needed an orphan, shall we say? And I knew just the place. And I especially needed an orphan who at that time, in that place, no one would have adopted. Uh, oh, not that one, for all the reasons that I explained. In other words, I. I knew what Dr. Larch's rules were. And so I had a A childhood and adolescent memory that was pretty good of how unfamiliar of or wary of Jewish people many New Englanders were. There were not, comparatively speaking, a whole lot of Jewish people in New England when I was growing up. And I wanted my Esther, in her late teens and early 20s, to have every reason to make up for the Jewish childhood that had been taken from her, the Jewish childhood she should have had that was denied. So I, I, I wanted all along, I mean, you know me, Charlie, I, I begin with an ending and work my way back. And I knew where this Esther would end up. I had to, I, I thought, let me create a character that we empathize with be because of what's happened to her, because she is, even as a three year old, her life has been shaped by antisemitism. Let's send her back to her birth country. And given the time, time in a historical novel is everything. Given the time that Esther returns to Vienna at a time when many other Jews were wisely already leaving, it was easy to imagine that her trajectory from there would take her to the land of Israel, would take her to the land of Judah. That's her destiny, right, John?
A
I don't think I'm giving anything away but Jimmy Winslow, a principal character who resembles John Irving to me, but we'll, we'll get to that later, is raised by Honor Winslow. She wanted a child, but she didn't want to go through the process of conceiving one. Instead, it is Esther who is his biological mother, always knowing that she would give the child to Honor. Am I wrong that basically what's in your mind is the central issue of this novel, Jimmy's quest to find out who he really is.
C
Yeah, like you, I don't want to give too much away. Okay. We've already said that Esther will be Jimmy's birth mother. What's I think more central is to recognize that you might say that Esther takes every responsibility she's given perhaps over seriously. She takes her responsibility and not only matches it, but and then some. That's the kind of girl she is. So if she's a nanny, if she's a mother's helper with Honor Winslow, she kind of looks after honor a whole lot longer than honor as a child. She gives honor a child of her own, knowing that Honor would like to be a mother without all the things that are generally attached. That's certainly a generous gesture.
A
You have often talked about not knowing your biological father and you've talked about how much you loved your stepfather who, who so recently passed away. How much of your stepfather is Tommy Winslow, Jimmy's grandfather? And to come back to what you were talking about, how much is his grandson, Jimmy John Irving?
C
Well, I think I've just said to what degree Jimmy is like me in that he's an exaggeration of myself. I've said in other books, I've said in other interviews that when you know you want to be a writer and you're only a teenager, when you're already trying to be a writer of fiction, you're living at a formative age. You're living more in your imagination than you are in and of the moment. I take myself as an example that writers in their own lives, certainly in my case, often feel they are more of an observer than they are a participant in the time they live. You feel that you are standing back and watching something and taking it to mind and holding it more than you are participating in what is going on. Your job is to see what's going on, to retain it, to mull it over even before you know it's a job, even before you're writing every day you're. You're not quite there. Wherever there is, wherever you are, there's a part of you that isn't there. You know, Another way I've said that in other books is that writers are outsiders, and we feel like outsiders. In the opening chapter, Queen Esther, I say very plainly that Jimmy Winslow had a foreignness inside him. Well, I think writers often feel like they're a foreigner in their own country, in their own hometown. I've said this probably to you, Charlie, in other interviews, that I remember one of the feelings I had when I first was a student abroad, the first time I was actually a foreigner in a foreign country where they spoke another language, which I had taken pains to learn somewhat before I went. But for the first time, I really was a foreigner. But in some ways, I never felt as at home as I did that first year abroad when I knew nothing, was struggling to speak the language everyone around me was speaking. But I kind of felt, I am an Auslander, as the Germans say. I am a foreigner, and for the first time I feel it's okay to be one. What I'm saying is that it made me aware of how much of a foreigner I felt I was all the years I grew up in Exeter, New Hampshire, and I felt, there's something wrong with you. Why aren't you taking part in this? The way your friends are, the way everybody else in your family is kind of caught up in the moment? And here you are, you know, standing in the corner of the room with nothing to say. Do you see what I mean? All of a sudden I'm somewhere where I don't have to feel guilty for being a foreigner because I am one.
B
As Jimmy starts to begin his preoccupation with writing, somebody astutely calls him a horse with blinders on. I mean, we've just been talking about how Jimmy is a version of you. Would you describe yourself as a horse with blinders on?
C
I try to be. I mean, I think the phrase in German, ein ferd mitzloiklappen was something, was an expression I sort of fell in love with when I went to Vienna. I mean, when there was a break, you know, from school, when the university was on holiday and everyone, you know, it was. It was Christmas. Everyone was going to go skiing. I guess everyone's just going to get out of Vienna and go skiing. Well, I'd grown up in a ski family. I knew how to ski. Everyone was going skiing. And I stayed in Vienna and thought, now I can get some writing done even though I'm in Austria, for God's sake, and skiing is better than it was in New Hampshire. But my friends had a hard time to talk me into going skiing, even on a long weekend when I probably wouldn't get any writing done. But that's what I mean. I mean, you know, it was the joy of my life, the luxury of my life, when my fourth novel liberated me from being a teacher and I suddenly had. I could write all day. What it meant to be. What it meant to be self supporting was that, oh, I can do this seven days a week. I can do this seven hours a day. It wasn't a burden. But I, you know, that's. That's a horse with blinders on. No question.
A
John, I. A hallmark of any of your novels is your ability to get the reader to accept as normal behavior what might not be considered normal.
C
Oh, yeah.
A
Esther wants a 21 word quote from Jane Eyre tattooed on her abdomen. Honor wants Jimmy to knock up some woman, any woman, so he can avoid the Vietnam War. And if he doesn't, she says she'll shoot him in the knee or cut off his trigger finger. And you as a reader are saying, yeah, okay, sure, absolutely. Is there a technique as an author to get readers to accept and to suspend belief?
B
I want to add to that. We had a conversation about four days ago. He had finished and I had not. And he said, well, I'll tell you a little bit about what happens but not a lot has happened. And then he starts talking about Jewish wrestlers, a trip to Vienna, a very strange landlady, a dog. He starts. And I go, actually, it sounds like a lot happened, dad. And a lot of it's a little eccentric, right?
A
There are still a lot of eccentricities in there, John, you make it sound very logical, but it's you. You get me. You get me suspended.
C
In order to get over that, you just have to make. If you make a character present enough through dialogue, through actions, if you give them some distinguishing edges that stand out, that stand out about. About the rest. For example, look at what Yolanda will do. Look at how far Yolanda will go. Well, before you can take her there, before you can make her the. You say eccentric, Charlie. I would say before you can make Yolanda the extreme character she is, you have to make her very real. You have to. Well, this isn't noticed by everyone, but there's more attention paid to Yolanda's physicality. I think every reader sees Yolanda as clearly or more clearly than almost any other character. Not only the way she talks and the way she dresses, but let's give her a bicycle pump. And if you're going to give her a bicycle pump, you better know how to use it right? And you better make damn sure she will use it. You better make sure that bicycle pump is really going to get a workout. You see what I mean? I mean, you can. If you want to make something, you say eccentric, I say extreme. If you want to get away with something extreme that is nonetheless real, the characters have to be real. And so that's how that works. I mean, the more extreme you want to take something or make someone be, the first thing you gotta do is make them the most real.
B
There are two characters, Mika and Jimmy, have a conversation about the passage of time and how time passes in a novel. And it got me paying attention to the way you treat the passage of time. And does what you just said about setup to make decisions pay off, does that also contribute to the decisions you make about the passage of time? Because every once in a while I come up across a sentence that says 15 years later. And I'm like, that's not like John. We just skipped 15 years ahead. How do you decide on those decisions about the passage of time in your books?
C
Well, in the notes I take before I begin a novel, in the pages that add up with a storyline, a cast of characters, the passage of time is something I have to know. In other words, before I begin writing a novel, I Not only have to know how and where and when it ends, but I have to know the ground covered. Otherwise, how can I know who lives and dies and what happens to somebody if I don't know what the arc of time is, if I don't know the trajectory of the arc of time? Here's why the passage of time meant so much, including where to end a novel. I wanted to be sure that my depiction of what is already happening, already taking place in Jerusalem in April of 1981, was a truthful forecast of, to quote myself, the eternal conflict that we see has developed, been sustained over time. In my conception of the book, I was always asking myself, you know, the job of this, of history in a novel is to accurately foreshadow the present. And I kept asking myself, does. Does the end of Queen Esther hint at forecast, a likely eternity of this conflict, of this everlasting hatred? Well, yes, I think it does. But it saddens me that in 1981, I didn't imagine that conflict would be as awful or as eternal in its appearance as it does now.
A
Final question. John, you have said in most cases you have a last sentence in mind and you write toward that sentence throughout the novel. I don't know if that's true. I read your novels through that prism sometimes. But I thought the last paragraph of Queen Esther perfectly summed up the novel. Did you write that first?
C
Well, you know, what I've actually said about writing my endings first is more complicated and more inclusive than the last sentence. Yes, as it turns out, I did. I do have last sentences first. But I've also said, and I've not read this, no one seems to care. I've also said that if I ever think of a better last sentence when I get there, I wouldn't hesitate to change it. This isn't a religion. This is what happens to me. And what happened. What. What really happens to me is that by the time I get to the last chapter, I've probably already written the last half or the last two thirds of the chapter, if I'm lucky. There's three or four last sentences that would work equally well, and I'll make up my mind about which one to take when I get there. But they're all pretty close to one another. You know, it's where the beat comes down. But, you know, the truth is, Dr. Larch and Thomas Winslow are right. Esther is the best one. They're right about what they say about Esther in the context of her as an orphan, as an unadopted orphan. Well, in the end, she wins over Jimmy. Jimmy is an ally. And that's as close as Esther ever wants him to be. Right. You know, Esther herself would say, no, you're not a Jew, you're an ally. Okay, but you're not a Jew. And that last paragraph, you know, I think I tinkered with it quite a lot. And that whole final passage beginning with the line, at last Jimmy Winslow knew who he was. Well, everything from there, some of those parts are. They're pretty interchangeable. You could have fun with that. So it ain't just the last sentences. It's what you're gonna get when you get there.
A
Well, both Kate and I thought that last graph was a perfect summation of the novel. Queen Esther is the book John Irving it is always a pleasure to be in the midst of a novel and think to yourself, oh yeah, this is a John Irving novel. Thanks for talking to us. Appreciate it.
B
Yeah, thank you.
C
Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Kate. Nice to see you.
B
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B
This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate. C. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs have four times more applicants than non sponsored Jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions app. The great John Irving, who is always a pleasure to have in the bookcase. We skipped rapid fire and God love him. I don't think he can do rapid fire. Like rapid fire is just not in his oeuvre. He's just not a rapid fire guy. He's too thoughtful and too much of a thinker.
A
Well, there are many pauses in our conversation, some of which, many of which I guess Tom Butler edited out, because John does take a few minutes to think about things. And therefore the interview that you heard may have been X number of minutes. But believe me, when we did it, it was X plus Y. But I remember, for instance, in the first time we had John on and we did the Stephen Colbert question about what five words do you want the rest of your life to be? John spent about 10 minutes with a pen and a paper writing a. No, that's not right. Oh, no, that's seven words. No. Well, this is too long. I don't know. Let me. And finally he came out with a terrific phrase, not to be a bother.
B
It was not to be a burden.
A
Not to be a burden. Not to be a burden.
B
I think it speaks to how much of a wordsmith he is. He's not a writer who sits down and just plunkety, plunkety, plunkety, plunk. Like, I really do believe he stares out a window for about a month. He is a wordsmith. He's a word craftsman. And it shows in his work the thoughtfulness of each of his sentences in.
A
The book Fourth Hand, which I think he would agree is not his greatest novel, but there's a broadcaster in it. And John sent it to me and asked me to comment about did he get the broadcasting details right? And I wrote him a long, long, long critique of the book. Not critique, but critique of some of the phrases that he used. And so I'm in the acknowledgments. If you want to get a copy of the Fourth Hand, I'm in the acknowledgments. It's one of the highlights of my life. I'll have it on my gravestone. He's in a John Nerving novel in the acknowledgments. But I remember when he wrote me back after I sent him that, and he had a three word sentence in the book that he had shortened down to two. And he said better, I think meaning the sentence was better in the rewrite. And I thought, John, you're focused. You know, it's a long, long book and you're focused on a three word sentence. But that's the extent of detail that he goes into. Anyway, our thanks to John, as always. We want to remind you of the folks who we work with who make this podcast possible.
B
And then if you will indulge us, and frankly, you already have indulged us because you're listening to this show, so that's indulgent. If you will indulge us, we have a a coda ourselves that we want to do, which is, you know, really us just going and complaining about a pet peeve we have. So you don't want to miss it. You don't want to miss griping and pet peeving. So stay tuned.
A
It is a pet peeve that we have that I think others have talked about. Anyway, here are the folks who make this podcast possible.
B
The book Case with Pete and Charlie Gibson is a production of ABC Audio and Good Morning America. It is edited by Tom Butler of TKO Productions. Our executive producer is Simone Swink. We want to make mention of Amanda McMaster, Sabrina Kohlberg, Arielle Chester at Good Morning America, and Josh Cohan from ABC Audio. Follow the bookcase wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to listen, rate and review. If you'd like to find any of the books mentioned in this episode, we have them linked in the episode description.
A
Please, please, please, please, merchants of the world, stop advertising Christmas and the first of November and on. I'm willing to devote one month to Christmas, December, I'll think about Christmas. But please give us Thanksgiving. There are so many ads now about Christmas. No, stop it, stop it, stop it.
B
I saw a post the other day that said, you know, for every Christmas ad you see before Thanksgiving, Santa drowns a baby reindeer. And I would like to throw that out there to merchants to say that, you know, you don't want to endanger the baby reindeer. We don't want to make Santa mad. His job is hard enough. And actually, too, like, I just feel like Thanksgiving deserves its own time because whether you spend it with family or the family that you've chosen in your life, it's full of tradition and delicious food. And there's something about celebrating. In some ways. I love the holiday so much, but you do cook for a week for a meal that you eat in 30 minutes. Like, I will say that. Like, maybe we could just celebrate that. You know, days of prep, 30 minutes of enjoyment.
A
But it's not just a meal. It is not just a meal. It is thinking of all your blessings. Oh, fine. And there are so many fine. Don't get gooey on me, dad. Blessings. Yeah, but give us Thanksgiving. Stop advertising Christmas and get all those people out of the Santa suits in early November and stop with all the decorations in the stores and do it day after Thanksgiving if you want. I'll. Okay, I'll give you that. But not, not, not the whole damn month anyway. That's our pet peeve. And that's our show for this week. Thanks for joining us. We thank you for your support. 911, what is the address to your emergency?
C
This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the television of Ashland, Ohio.
B
Into a crime scene.
A
We've got something big going on here.
B
The first thing hit my mind is.
C
A monster, a new series from ABC Audio in 2020. The hand in the window.
A
Out.
C
Now, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Podcast: The Book Case
Episode: John Irving Creates a Queen
Hosts: Charlie Gibson (A), Kate Gibson (B)
Guest: John Irving (C)
Date: November 20, 2025
This episode features an in-depth conversation with acclaimed novelist John Irving about his new book, Queen Esther. The hosts, Charlie and Kate Gibson, explore the novel's themes of family, identity, historical memory, and the craft of writing. The discussion delves into how Irving constructs worlds that make the eccentric and extraordinary feel comfortingly normal—a hallmark of his career. The episode is rich with reflections on Irving’s writing philosophy, the origins and emotional resonance of Queen Esther, and the perennial motifs running through his oeuvre.
Kate [06:41]: “It feels like settling up in, in the fire in a winter night and reading John Irving. This book. It's weird, it's quirky, but it's warm and wonderful.”
John Irving [11:24]: “If you're claiming it as history in a novel, it ain't good enough that it happened to you. It had to be happening all the time.”
John Irving [13:19]: “I wanted... a character that we empathize with because of what's happened to her... even as a three year old, her life has been shaped by antisemitism. Let's send her back to her birth country... that's her destiny.”
John Irving [16:27]: “Writers in their own lives... often feel they are more of an observer than they are a participant in the time they live.”
John Irving [18:21]: “I am a foreigner, and for the first time I feel it's okay to be one.”
John Irving [20:14]: “The joy of my life, the luxury of my life, when my fourth novel liberated me from being a teacher... But that's a horse with blinders on. No question.”
John Irving [22:08]: “If you want to make something... extreme that is nonetheless real, the characters have to be real.”
John Irving [26:26]: “By the time I get to the last chapter, I've probably already written the last half... there’s three or four last sentences that would work equally well, and I'll make up my mind about which one to take when I get there.”
Charlie [28:31]: “Both Kate and I thought that last graph was a perfect summation of the novel.”
On Writing, Belonging, and Outsiderness:
John Irving [16:27]:
“Writers in their own lives... often feel they are more of an observer than they are a participant in the time they live.”
On Historical Fiction:
John Irving [11:24]:
“If you're claiming it as history... it ain't good enough that it happened to you. It had to be happening all the time.”
On Crafting Real Characters:
John Irving [22:08]:
“If you want to get away with something extreme that is nonetheless real, the characters have to be real.”
On His Signature Approach to Endings:
John Irving [26:26]:
“Yes, as it turns out, I did. I do have last sentences first. But... if I ever think of a better last sentence when I get there, I wouldn't hesitate to change it. This isn't a religion...”
On Receiving Blurbs from Charlie:
Charlie [31:43]:
“It's one of the highlights of my life. I'll have it on my gravestone. He's in a John Irving novel in the acknowledgments.”
The discussion blends warmth, humor, and literary insight, with the Gibsons expressing both reverence and affection for John Irving. Irving matches this with thoughtful (and sometimes self-deprecating) candor, elucidating his complex process while remaining accessible and personal.
This episode offers:
Those unfamiliar with Irving’s work will leave with an understanding of why his books resonate so deeply for many, while devoted readers will appreciate the fresh angles on familiar themes.