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If certain novelists have an peak phase, in which they achieve the summit repeatedly, then U.S. writer John Irving’s ran through a series of several fat, rewarding novels, from his 1978 success The World According to Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Such were expansive, funny, compassionate books, tying characters he refers to as “outsiders” to social issues from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, aside from in word count. His previous work, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of subjects Irving had examined more effectively in prior novels (selective mutism, restricted growth, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page film script in the middle to pad it out – as if padding were needed.

Therefore we approach a new Irving with reservation but still a faint glimmer of optimism, which shines hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is one of Irving’s finest works, taking place primarily in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

The book is a failure from a author who previously gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and belonging with vibrancy, humor and an all-encompassing understanding. And it was a important work because it left behind the themes that were evolving into repetitive habits in his novels: wrestling, ursine creatures, Austrian capital, sex work.

Queen Esther starts in the made-up town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in 14-year-old foundling the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a a number of decades before the action of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch stays familiar: even then using the drug, adored by his caregivers, starting every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in the book is restricted to these early sections.

The couple are concerned about raising Esther well: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish female understand her place?” To answer that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will join the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed group whose “mission was to defend Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would later establish the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are enormous subjects to tackle, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not actually about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s even more disheartening that it’s likewise not about the titular figure. For motivations that must relate to plot engineering, Esther becomes a gestational carrier for one more of the Winslows’ daughters, and delivers to a male child, James, in the early forties – and the bulk of this book is his narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s fixations return strongly, both regular and specific. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the city; there’s discussion of evading the military conscription through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic name (the animal, recall the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, authors and penises (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a less interesting persona than the female lead promised to be, and the supporting characters, such as pupils Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are one-dimensional too. There are several enjoyable episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a fight where a couple of bullies get beaten with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a delicate author, but that is not the issue. He has consistently restated his arguments, hinted at narrative turns and allowed them to gather in the viewer's imagination before taking them to fruition in extended, jarring, amusing scenes. For example, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to disappear: think of the tongue in The Garp Novel, the finger in His Owen Book. Those absences reverberate through the narrative. In this novel, a central person suffers the loss of an limb – but we merely find out 30 pages before the conclusion.

She returns in the final part in the novel, but merely with a eleventh-hour impression of concluding. We never do find out the entire story of her experiences in the Middle East. This novel is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading in parallel to this work – still remains wonderfully, 40 years on. So choose it as an alternative: it’s twice as long as this book, but far as great.