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If some novelists enjoy an peak era, in which they hit the summit consistently, then American novelist John Irving’s extended through a sequence of four fat, gratifying books, from his late-seventies hit Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were expansive, humorous, warm works, linking figures he describes as “outsiders” to cultural themes from feminism to abortion.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning returns, except in size. His previous book, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had delved into more skillfully in prior works (mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a 200-page script in the heart to extend it – as if filler were required.

Thus we approach a new Irving with caution but still a small flame of expectation, which glows brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages in length – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties work is one of Irving’s very best works, located primarily in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

This novel is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving wrote about abortion and acceptance with richness, humor and an total compassion. And it was a significant novel because it abandoned the themes that were turning into tiresome patterns in his works: wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

This book opens in the imaginary town of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple welcome young orphan the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a a number of decades ahead of the events of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor is still identifiable: still dependent on the drug, respected by his staff, beginning every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in the book is limited to these opening sections.

The Winslows worry about bringing up Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a young girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the Zionist armed organisation whose “mission was to defend Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently form the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are massive topics to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not really about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s still more disheartening that it’s also not about the main character. For causes that must relate to plot engineering, Esther becomes a gestational carrier for a different of the family's children, and delivers to a baby boy, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this novel is the boy's story.

And here is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both common and distinct. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a pet with a meaningful title (the dog's name, remember the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, sex workers, writers and penises (Irving’s recurring).

Jimmy is a less interesting persona than the female lead hinted to be, and the secondary characters, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are flat too. There are a few enjoyable scenes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of thugs get battered with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a nuanced writer, but that is not the issue. He has repeatedly reiterated his ideas, foreshadowed plot developments and enabled them to build up in the audience's thoughts before bringing them to completion in extended, jarring, funny moments. For example, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to be lost: remember the tongue in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses resonate through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a key figure is deprived of an limb – but we just discover 30 pages before the end.

The protagonist reappears toward the end in the story, but just with a final impression of concluding. We not once discover the full account of her life in Palestine and Israel. This novel is a disappointment from a writer who once gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading in parallel to this work – still remains wonderfully, after forty years. So read it instead: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but far as enjoyable.