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If certain novelists enjoy an golden era, in which they reach the pinnacle repeatedly, then U.S. author John Irving’s ran through a series of several fat, gratifying works, from his late-seventies hit Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. These were expansive, funny, big-hearted novels, tying characters he refers to as “outsiders” to cultural themes from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning outcomes, save in word count. His most recent novel, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages of themes Irving had explored more effectively in prior books (selective mutism, short stature, transgenderism), with a 200-page screenplay in the heart to fill it out – as if filler were needed.

So we come to a new Irving with reservation but still a tiny spark of expectation, which glows hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages – “returns to the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is among Irving’s very best works, located largely in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer.

The book is a disappointment from a novelist who in the past gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and belonging with colour, humor and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a significant novel because it abandoned the themes that were evolving into tiresome patterns in his books: wrestling, ursine creatures, Vienna, prostitution.

The novel opens in the imaginary village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt 14-year-old orphan Esther from St Cloud's home. We are a several decades ahead of the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Dr Larch is still familiar: still using the drug, beloved by his staff, opening every speech with “In this place...” But his appearance in this novel is restricted to these initial sections.

The family worry about raising Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a adolescent Jewish female find herself?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish migration to Palestine, where she will enter the Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant force whose “goal was to defend Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would later form the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are massive themes to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is hardly about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s even more disheartening that it’s also not focused on the main character. For causes that must relate to plot engineering, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for one more of the Winslows’ children, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the majority of this story is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both typical and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of dodging the military conscription through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a dog with a meaningful designation (the dog's name, remember the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, novelists and penises (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a less interesting figure than the heroine promised to be, and the minor characters, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are one-dimensional also. There are a few enjoyable episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a handful of bullies get beaten with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a delicate author, but that is is not the problem. He has always restated his arguments, foreshadowed narrative turns and allowed them to build up in the viewer's imagination before bringing them to completion in lengthy, surprising, entertaining scenes. For example, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to be lost: think of the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the narrative. In the book, a major character is deprived of an upper extremity – but we merely discover 30 pages the end.

She comes back in the final part in the story, but just with a last-minute impression of concluding. We not once learn the full story of her time in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a letdown from a novelist who in the past gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – I reread it alongside this novel – yet holds up beautifully, four decades later. So pick up that as an alternative: it’s much longer as the new novel, but far as great.