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If some novelists have an golden era, where they hit the heights time after time, then American writer John Irving’s ran through a run of four long, gratifying novels, from his late-seventies success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were expansive, funny, compassionate books, tying protagonists he calls “outsiders” to social issues from gender equality to termination.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning results, save in page length. His most recent novel, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages long of topics Irving had delved into more effectively in prior works (mutism, short stature, transgenderism), with a 200-page film script in the heart to extend it – as if extra material were necessary.

So we look at a new Irving with care but still a tiny spark of hope, which shines brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “revisits the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is one of Irving’s finest novels, located largely in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Dr Larch and his apprentice Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such joy

In Cider House, Irving explored abortion and identity with colour, wit and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a major novel because it abandoned the topics that were evolving into annoying tics in his novels: the sport of wrestling, bears, Vienna, sex work.

This book opens in the fictional community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in teenage ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a several generations before the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor remains familiar: even then using the drug, beloved by his caregivers, beginning every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is restricted to these initial parts.

The Winslows are concerned about bringing up Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To answer that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will join Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant force whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would subsequently form the core of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are enormous topics to take on, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not really about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s also not really concerning Esther. For motivations that must relate to plot engineering, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for one more of the couple's offspring, and gives birth to a baby boy, James, in the early forties – and the majority of this book is his narrative.

And here is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both regular and distinct. Jimmy moves to – where else? – Vienna; there’s talk of evading the military conscription through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a dog with a symbolic title (the dog's name, remember the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, authors and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a duller figure than the heroine suggested to be, and the supporting players, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are some nice episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a handful of thugs get battered with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a subtle novelist, but that is not the issue. He has repeatedly repeated his points, foreshadowed story twists and enabled them to gather in the viewer's imagination before leading them to completion in extended, jarring, amusing scenes. For instance, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to be lost: remember the oral part in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces echo through the story. In Queen Esther, a central person loses an upper extremity – but we just discover thirty pages before the end.

The protagonist reappears late in the novel, but only with a final impression of wrapping things up. We never learn the full narrative of her experiences in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who in the past gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading alongside this novel – still remains excellently, 40 years on. So pick up that in its place: it’s twice as long as this book, but a dozen times as enjoyable.