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If a few writers experience an golden period, where they hit the summit repeatedly, then U.S. author John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four fat, gratifying works, from his 1978 success The World According to Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. Those were generous, witty, big-hearted books, connecting characters he refers to as “outliers” to societal topics from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining outcomes, aside from in word count. His last novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of subjects Irving had explored more effectively in previous books (mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a 200-page screenplay in the middle to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

Therefore we look at a recent Irving with reservation but still a small spark of optimism, which burns brighter when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is among Irving’s finest novels, taking place primarily in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

The book is a disappointment from a writer who previously gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored termination and acceptance with vibrancy, wit and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a important novel because it abandoned the subjects that were becoming annoying patterns in his works: wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

This book starts in the fictional town of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple adopt teenage ward Esther from St Cloud's home. We are a several decades before the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch stays identifiable: even then addicted to the drug, beloved by his staff, opening every talk with “In this place...” But his role in this novel is restricted to these initial sections.

The family are concerned about parenting Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a young girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To answer that, we jump ahead to Esther’s later life in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will enter Haganah, the Zionist armed force whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would subsequently form the core of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are massive subjects to address, but having presented them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not really about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s additionally not really concerning the titular figure. For motivations that must relate to story mechanics, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for another of the family's children, and bears to a son, the boy, in 1941 – and the majority of this story is the boy's narrative.

And now is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both regular and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the city; there’s mention of dodging the military conscription through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic designation (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a duller persona than the heroine suggested to be, and the minor figures, such as pupils Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are one-dimensional as well. There are several nice set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a handful of bullies get battered with a walking aid and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a subtle writer, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has always restated his ideas, hinted at story twists and let them to accumulate in the viewer's thoughts before bringing them to fruition in long, surprising, funny sequences. For case, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to be lost: recall the speech organ in Garp, the finger in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces reverberate through the story. In the book, a central figure loses an arm – but we only discover thirty pages before the finish.

Esther comes back toward the end in the novel, but only with a final sense of concluding. We never learn the full account of her time in the region. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who in the past gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The upside is that His Classic Novel – I reread it in parallel to this book – even now stands up beautifully, after forty years. So pick up that in its place: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but 12 times as great.