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If certain writers have an peak phase, in which they achieve the summit repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s lasted through a series of four long, rewarding novels, from his late-seventies hit Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Those were generous, humorous, warm novels, linking figures he refers to as “misfits” to cultural themes from gender equality to abortion.

After Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, except in size. His last work, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages long of topics Irving had examined more effectively in prior novels (selective mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a lengthy screenplay in the center to fill it out – as if padding were required.

So we look at a new Irving with caution but still a small flame of optimism, which glows stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages long – “goes back to the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 novel is one of Irving’s top-tier novels, set mostly in an orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Dr Larch and his apprentice Homer.

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

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored pregnancy termination and acceptance with richness, wit and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a significant work because it left behind the topics that were becoming repetitive habits in his books: the sport of wrestling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

The novel starts in the imaginary village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome 14-year-old orphan the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a a number of years prior to the storyline of Cider House, yet the doctor remains familiar: even then addicted to anesthetic, respected by his staff, beginning every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in the book is restricted to these opening parts.

The family fret about bringing up Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a teenage Jewish female find herself?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist militant organisation whose “purpose was to protect Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would subsequently establish the basis of the Israel's military.

Such are enormous topics to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is hardly about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s still more disappointing that it’s additionally not really concerning the main character. For causes that must connect to plot engineering, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for another of the couple's children, and bears to a male child, the boy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this book is his narrative.

And now is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both common and specific. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of dodging the military conscription through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a symbolic name (Hard Rain, recall Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

He is a more mundane figure than the heroine suggested to be, and the supporting characters, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are one-dimensional as well. There are several nice episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a fight where a handful of bullies get beaten with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle writer, but that is is not the difficulty. He has always reiterated his points, hinted at plot developments and let them to accumulate in the audience's imagination before taking them to fruition in lengthy, jarring, amusing moments. For example, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to be lost: think of the oral part in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those losses resonate through the story. In the book, a central character is deprived of an limb – but we just find out 30 pages later the end.

The protagonist returns toward the end in the book, but merely with a final sense of ending the story. We do not learn the complete story of her life in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that His Classic Novel – revisiting it in parallel to this novel – even now remains wonderfully, four decades later. So choose that in its place: it’s double the length as this book, but far as enjoyable.