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If certain writers enjoy an golden phase, where they reach the summit consistently, then American writer John Irving’s extended through a sequence of several fat, rewarding novels, from his late-seventies breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were rich, humorous, big-hearted works, linking protagonists he refers to as “outliers” to societal topics from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been declining results, except in size. His most recent novel, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages in length of themes Irving had explored better in previous novels (inability to speak, short stature, gender identity), with a 200-page script in the middle to fill it out – as if padding were needed.

So we come to a new Irving with reservation but still a small glimmer of optimism, which burns stronger when we learn that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages – “returns to the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is one of Irving’s very best books, taking place largely in an orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who previously gave such joy

In His Cider House Novel, Irving discussed abortion and identity with richness, comedy and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a significant work because it moved past the topics that were becoming repetitive patterns in his books: the sport of wrestling, bears, Vienna, sex work.

Queen Esther opens in the fictional town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple adopt teenage ward the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a a number of years prior to the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet Dr Larch stays identifiable: even then using ether, respected by his nurses, opening every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in the book is confined to these initial parts.

The couple worry about raising Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a teenage Jewish female discover her identity?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will become part of Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary force whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would subsequently become the foundation of the Israel's military.

Those are huge themes to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not really about St Cloud’s and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s likewise not focused on the main character. For reasons that must involve narrative construction, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for another of the Winslows’ children, and delivers to a baby boy, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the majority of this book is Jimmy’s tale.

And at this point is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy moves to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of evading the military conscription through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a dog with a symbolic designation (the dog's name, recall the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a more mundane persona than Esther suggested to be, and the secondary characters, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor Eissler, are flat as well. There are some amusing scenes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a handful of bullies get assaulted with a walking aid and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a subtle novelist, but that is is not the problem. He has always restated his ideas, telegraphed plot developments and let them to build up in the audience's imagination before leading them to resolution in lengthy, jarring, funny moments. For case, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to disappear: remember the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences echo through the plot. In Queen Esther, a key person suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we only learn thirty pages later the finish.

She comes back toward the end in the story, but merely with a last-minute impression of ending the story. We not once do find out the entire story of her time in the Middle East. The book is a letdown from a author who once gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading alongside this novel – still holds up beautifully, after forty years. So choose the earlier work as an alternative: it’s much longer as this book, but far as great.