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If certain writers enjoy an golden phase, in which they hit the pinnacle repeatedly, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a run of four long, gratifying works, from his late-seventies hit Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. Those were generous, witty, compassionate novels, connecting protagonists he describes as “misfits” to social issues from women's rights to abortion.

After A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, save in size. His last book, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages long of subjects Irving had explored better in earlier works (mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a lengthy screenplay in the middle to extend it – as if extra material were required.

Therefore we approach a new Irving with care but still a small spark of hope, which shines stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages long – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is among Irving’s very best novels, set primarily in an orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

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

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored abortion and belonging with vibrancy, comedy and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a major book because it left behind the themes that were turning into annoying patterns in his works: wrestling, bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book opens in the imaginary village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple adopt young foundling the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a several years prior to the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch remains familiar: even then dependent on anesthetic, adored by his nurses, beginning every talk with “In this place...” But his presence in Queen Esther is limited to these initial sections.

The family fret about raising Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a teenage Jewish female discover her identity?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will join Haganah, the pro-Zionist paramilitary organisation whose “purpose was to defend Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would subsequently establish the foundation of the IDF.

These are huge subjects to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not actually about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s also not really concerning the main character. For reasons that must involve plot engineering, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for one more of the family's children, and gives birth to a baby boy, James, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this story is his narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both regular and particular. Jimmy moves to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a symbolic designation (the animal, recall the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, writers and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a duller figure than Esther hinted to be, and the supporting figures, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are one-dimensional too. There are a few amusing episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a few ruffians get beaten with a support and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a subtle novelist, but that is not the problem. He has consistently reiterated his arguments, foreshadowed story twists and allowed them to accumulate in the viewer's imagination before bringing them to completion in long, shocking, entertaining sequences. For instance, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to go missing: think of the tongue in The Garp Novel, the finger in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces reverberate through the story. In Queen Esther, a key character suffers the loss of an arm – but we merely find out thirty pages the end.

Esther comes back toward the end in the book, but merely with a final impression of concluding. We never discover the entire story of her time in the Middle East. The book is a letdown from a writer who previously gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – I reread it together with this book – even now remains wonderfully, after forty years. So pick up it in its place: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as great.