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If certain writers experience an imperial phase, in which they hit the summit repeatedly, then American writer John Irving’s lasted through a series of several long, satisfying works, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were generous, witty, warm books, connecting protagonists he calls “outliers” to cultural themes from feminism to termination.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing outcomes, aside from in word count. His previous work, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages in length of subjects Irving had examined better in previous novels (mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page script in the center to extend it – as if filler were required.

Therefore we approach a recent Irving with reservation but still a small spark of optimism, which shines hotter when we find out that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages – “returns to the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties novel is part of Irving’s top-tier novels, located largely in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

The book is a failure from a novelist who once gave such joy

In Cider House, Irving explored pregnancy termination and acceptance with richness, wit and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a significant book because it left behind the topics that were becoming repetitive patterns in his books: wrestling, ursine creatures, Austrian capital, the oldest profession.

This book starts in the imaginary village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple welcome 14-year-old orphan the title character from the orphanage. We are a a number of generations prior to the events of Cider House, yet the doctor is still identifiable: still dependent on anesthetic, adored by his caregivers, opening every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is confined to these opening sections.

The family worry about bringing up Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to Palestine, where she will join the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary organisation whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish towns from opposition” and which would eventually form the basis of the Israel's military.

Those are huge subjects to take on, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is hardly about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s even more disappointing that it’s also not really concerning the main character. For causes that must connect to story mechanics, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for one more of the Winslows’ offspring, and gives birth to a baby boy, the boy, in 1941 – and the majority of this book is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both typical and specific. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the city; there’s discussion of avoiding the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a dog with a symbolic designation (the dog's name, recall the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

Jimmy is a duller persona than Esther promised to be, and the secondary characters, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are several amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a few bullies get beaten with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a subtle author, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has always restated his ideas, foreshadowed story twists and enabled them to accumulate in the reader’s mind before bringing them to completion in extended, surprising, amusing scenes. For example, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to disappear: think of the tongue in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences echo through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a major person is deprived of an upper extremity – but we merely discover thirty pages the finish.

The protagonist returns toward the end in the book, but just with a eleventh-hour impression of concluding. We never learn the full account of her time in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who once gave such joy. That’s the downside. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading alongside this work – even now holds up beautifully, four decades later. So read the earlier work in its place: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as great.