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If certain writers enjoy an golden era, where they hit the pinnacle consistently, then American novelist John Irving’s lasted through a series of four substantial, gratifying books, from his 1978 success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were generous, humorous, big-hearted books, linking figures he refers to as “outliers” to societal topics from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, aside from in word count. His previous book, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages of themes Irving had explored more effectively in prior novels (mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a 200-page film script in the middle to pad it out – as if extra material were required.

Therefore we approach a recent Irving with reservation but still a small flame of optimism, which burns hotter when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a only 432 pages in length – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is part of Irving’s very best novels, set largely in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a author who in the past gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and identity with vibrancy, wit and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a significant novel because it left behind the topics that were evolving into annoying habits in his works: wrestling, ursine creatures, Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther opens in the made-up community of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in young orphan Esther from the orphanage. We are a several generations prior to the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch is still identifiable: even then addicted to ether, respected by his staff, opening every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in Queen Esther is restricted to these initial parts.

The Winslows worry about parenting Esther correctly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist armed organisation whose “mission was to defend Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would subsequently form the foundation of the Israel's military.

Such are enormous themes to take on, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is hardly about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s still more disappointing that it’s likewise not about the titular figure. For causes that must relate to narrative construction, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for one more of the family's children, and bears to a baby boy, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this novel is Jimmy’s story.

And at this point is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy moves to – naturally – Vienna; there’s discussion of evading the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic designation (the animal, meet the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, sex workers, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a more mundane persona than the heroine suggested to be, and the minor players, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are underdeveloped also. There are several amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of thugs get battered with a support and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced author, but that is isn't the problem. He has always restated his ideas, foreshadowed narrative turns and enabled them to build up in the viewer's thoughts before taking them to completion in long, jarring, entertaining moments. For case, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to disappear: think of the oral part in Garp, the digit in His Owen Book. Those absences echo through the plot. In Queen Esther, a major person loses an upper extremity – but we only find out thirty pages later the end.

Esther returns in the final part in the story, but merely with a final sense of ending the story. We not once do find out the full story of her time in the region. The book is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such joy. That’s the downside. The upside is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading alongside this novel – still stands up excellently, after forty years. So read the earlier work instead: it’s double the length as this book, but 12 times as enjoyable.