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If certain novelists have an golden era, where they reach the summit consistently, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four substantial, satisfying novels, from his late-seventies breakthrough His Garp Novel to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were rich, humorous, big-hearted works, connecting figures he calls “misfits” to societal topics from women's rights to abortion.

After His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining outcomes, save in size. His last book, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had explored more effectively in prior novels (inability to speak, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a lengthy screenplay in the middle to fill it out – as if padding were needed.

So we come to a new Irving with caution but still a small spark of optimism, which shines hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages in length – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is among Irving’s very best novels, located mostly in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Dr Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who previously gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored pregnancy termination and belonging with colour, humor and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a significant work because it abandoned the subjects that were evolving into repetitive patterns in his works: grappling, bears, Vienna, sex work.

This book starts in the made-up community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple welcome 14-year-old foundling the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a several decades prior to the action of Cider House, yet Dr Larch is still identifiable: even then addicted to anesthetic, adored by his nurses, beginning every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in Queen Esther is restricted to these early sections.

The Winslows fret about parenting Esther well: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a adolescent Jewish girl understand her place?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to Palestine, where she will join Haganah, the Jewish nationalist militant organisation whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently form the basis of the IDF.

Such are huge subjects to take on, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is not actually about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s also not about the titular figure. For causes that must relate to narrative construction, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for a different of the family's daughters, and bears to a son, James, in 1941 – and the bulk of this book is Jimmy’s tale.

And here is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy moves to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of evading the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a meaningful designation (Hard Rain, recall the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a duller persona than the female lead hinted to be, and the secondary characters, such as students the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are flat as well. There are some amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a fight where a handful of thugs get assaulted with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a delicate writer, but that is is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly restated his points, foreshadowed narrative turns and let them to build up in the audience's mind before taking them to resolution in lengthy, shocking, amusing scenes. For example, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to be lost: recall the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces resonate through the plot. In this novel, a key figure suffers the loss of an limb – but we merely find out thirty pages the conclusion.

She comes back toward the end in the book, but just with a last-minute feeling of wrapping things up. We never discover the entire narrative of her time in the region. The book is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The upside is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading alongside this work – even now stands up wonderfully, four decades later. So pick up it in its place: it’s twice as long as this book, but a dozen times as enjoyable.