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If some writers have an peak phase, where they hit the heights consistently, then U.S. author John Irving’s lasted through a run of several fat, gratifying works, from his late-seventies success The World According to Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. Those were expansive, funny, big-hearted novels, connecting protagonists he refers to as “outliers” to cultural themes from gender equality to termination.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, save in page length. His previous novel, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages long of subjects Irving had examined more skillfully in prior books (inability to speak, dwarfism, trans issues), with a 200-page film script in the heart to fill it out – as if filler were needed.

Thus we approach a new Irving with caution but still a tiny glimmer of optimism, which glows brighter when we discover that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages long – “returns to the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is part of Irving’s very best novels, set mostly in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

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

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored termination and belonging with vibrancy, humor and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a major book because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into repetitive patterns in his works: grappling, wild bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

This book opens in the imaginary community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome teenage foundling Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a several generations before the storyline of Cider House, yet Dr Larch remains identifiable: still addicted to ether, adored by his caregivers, starting every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in Queen Esther is restricted to these early scenes.

The family are concerned about bringing up Esther well: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a young girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will enter the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “mission was to protect Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would later become the core of the IDF.

Such are huge topics to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not actually about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s also not really concerning the main character. For motivations that must involve plot engineering, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for another of the Winslows’ offspring, and bears to a male child, James, in 1941 – and the majority of this book is his narrative.

And now is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both regular and distinct. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s talk of evading the draft notice through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic title (the dog's name, remember the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, authors and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

He is a less interesting figure than the female lead promised to be, and the secondary players, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped as well. There are several amusing set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a few thugs get battered with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle writer, but that is not the difficulty. He has always reiterated his ideas, telegraphed story twists and let them to build up in the audience's thoughts before bringing them to resolution in lengthy, shocking, entertaining moments. For case, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to be lost: remember the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces resonate through the narrative. In this novel, a key character is deprived of an limb – but we just find out thirty pages later the conclusion.

The protagonist returns toward the end in the story, but only with a eleventh-hour feeling of ending the story. We do not discover the full account of her life in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who once gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that Cider House – revisiting it alongside this novel – even now stands up beautifully, after forty years. So pick up the earlier work as an alternative: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but 12 times as good.