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If certain authors enjoy an peak period, where they reach the pinnacle time after time, then American author John Irving’s extended through a series of several fat, gratifying novels, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were expansive, funny, warm novels, linking protagonists he calls “outsiders” to societal topics from women's rights to termination.

After His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning returns, aside from in page length. His previous novel, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages long of themes Irving had explored better in previous novels (mutism, short stature, gender identity), with a lengthy script in the middle to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

So we come to a new Irving with care but still a tiny flame of optimism, which shines hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages in length – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is among Irving’s top-tier novels, taking place mostly in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a writer who previously gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored abortion and belonging with richness, humor and an all-encompassing understanding. And it was a significant book because it left behind the themes that were evolving into tiresome tics in his books: grappling, ursine creatures, Vienna, sex work.

The novel opens in the fictional town of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple take in teenage foundling Esther from the orphanage. We are a a number of generations before the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays recognisable: still using anesthetic, respected by his nurses, opening every talk with “In this place...” But his role in this novel is limited to these opening sections.

The family fret about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a young Jewish girl discover her identity?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will become part of the paramilitary group, the Zionist militant group whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would later establish the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are enormous themes to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not actually about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more disappointing that it’s likewise not focused on Esther. For motivations that must connect to story mechanics, Esther turns into a substitute parent for one more of the family's offspring, and gives birth to a baby boy, the boy, in the early forties – and the bulk of this novel is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both regular and specific. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of dodging the military conscription through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic designation (Hard Rain, remember the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, sex workers, authors and genitalia (Irving’s passim).

The character is a duller character than the heroine suggested to be, and the supporting players, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are several enjoyable scenes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a confrontation where a handful of bullies get battered with a crutch and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a nuanced writer, but that is is not the problem. He has always repeated his points, telegraphed narrative turns and allowed them to gather in the viewer's imagination before taking them to resolution in long, jarring, funny scenes. For example, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to disappear: remember the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses reverberate through the story. In the book, a central figure is deprived of an upper extremity – but we just find out 30 pages later the conclusion.

The protagonist reappears toward the end in the story, but just with a last-minute impression of concluding. We not once do find out the complete story of her experiences in the Middle East. This novel is a failure from a author who previously gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that Cider House – upon rereading in parallel to this work – still holds up excellently, 40 years on. So read that as an alternative: it’s double the length as this book, but far as great.