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If some writers enjoy an golden period, where they achieve the pinnacle consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s ran through a sequence of several substantial, gratifying books, from his 1978 success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were generous, funny, big-hearted books, tying characters he calls “outliers” to cultural themes from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning outcomes, save in page length. His last book, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages long of themes Irving had delved into more skillfully in previous works (mutism, restricted growth, trans issues), with a lengthy film script in the heart to fill it out – as if extra material were required.

Thus we come to a new Irving with care but still a small glimmer of expectation, which glows stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages long – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is one of Irving’s top-tier books, taking place primarily in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

The book is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such pleasure

In Cider House, Irving explored abortion and identity with richness, wit and an total compassion. And it was a significant novel because it left behind the subjects that were becoming tiresome habits in his novels: wrestling, bears, Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book opens in the imaginary village of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt young orphan the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a few decades before the events of Cider House, yet the doctor remains recognisable: already dependent on the drug, adored by his caregivers, opening every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in Queen Esther is restricted to these opening sections.

The family worry about raising Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a adolescent Jewish girl find herself?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will join Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant group whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would later establish the core of the IDF.

These are huge topics to take on, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not actually about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s even more disheartening that it’s also not about the main character. For motivations that must connect to story mechanics, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for another of the family's children, and gives birth to a son, James, in World War II era – and the bulk of this book is Jimmy’s tale.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of evading the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a significant title (the animal, remember the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, sex workers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a duller persona than the female lead suggested to be, and the minor players, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are a few enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a couple of thugs get assaulted with a support and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a subtle author, but that is not the problem. He has consistently reiterated his points, foreshadowed story twists and allowed them to accumulate in the audience's thoughts before bringing them to completion in lengthy, surprising, amusing sequences. For case, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to go missing: think of the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the finger in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the story. In Queen Esther, a major figure suffers the loss of an limb – but we only find out thirty pages later the finish.

Esther reappears late in the book, but just with a final sense of concluding. We not once discover the full account of her experiences in the Middle East. The book is a failure from a author who once gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading alongside this book – yet holds up beautifully, after forty years. So read the earlier work instead: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but far as great.