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If certain writers enjoy an golden period, during which they hit the heights consistently, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s extended through a sequence of several long, satisfying novels, from his late-seventies hit Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. Such were generous, witty, compassionate novels, connecting protagonists he calls “outliers” to societal topics from women's rights to abortion.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing returns, aside from in size. His last novel, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages in length of themes Irving had explored more skillfully in prior books (inability to speak, dwarfism, gender identity), with a lengthy film script in the center to extend it – as if extra material were required.

Therefore we come to a new Irving with caution but still a small flame of hope, which glows brighter when we discover that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages long – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is one of Irving’s top-tier novels, taking place primarily in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, operated by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Wells.

The book is a failure from a author who once gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about abortion and belonging with richness, humor and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a major work because it moved past the themes that were evolving into tiresome patterns in his books: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, Vienna, sex work.

Queen Esther opens in the made-up town of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in teenage foundling the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a a number of generations before the action of Cider House, yet the doctor stays recognisable: still addicted to the drug, beloved by his caregivers, starting every address with “In this place...” But his role in Queen Esther is restricted to these opening scenes.

The Winslows fret about parenting Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a adolescent Jewish female understand her place?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will join Haganah, the Zionist militant organisation whose “goal was to protect Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would eventually form the foundation of the IDF.

These are huge subjects to take on, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is hardly about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s even more disheartening that it’s additionally not really concerning the titular figure. For motivations that must relate to narrative construction, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for another of the family's daughters, and bears to a baby boy, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this story is Jimmy’s story.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both regular and particular. Jimmy moves to – where else? – Vienna; there’s talk of dodging the military conscription through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a dog with a significant designation (the animal, remember the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, authors and penises (Irving’s throughout).

He is a duller persona than Esther promised to be, and the minor characters, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are underdeveloped also. There are some nice episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a fight where a handful of thugs get beaten with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a subtle writer, but that is is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly reiterated his arguments, hinted at plot developments and let them to accumulate in the reader’s imagination before leading them to completion in long, surprising, entertaining moments. For example, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to be lost: remember the oral part in The Garp Novel, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those losses reverberate through the narrative. In this novel, a major figure loses an upper extremity – but we merely learn thirty pages before the end.

She returns late in the story, but merely with a final sense of wrapping things up. We do not discover the complete story of her life in the region. The book is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that Cider House – upon rereading in parallel to this novel – still remains beautifully, four decades later. So choose the earlier work instead: it’s double the length as the new novel, but a dozen times as good.