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If certain novelists enjoy an golden phase, during which they hit the heights consistently, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s lasted through a series of four substantial, gratifying books, from his 1978 hit Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were expansive, humorous, warm books, linking characters he refers to as “outsiders” to social issues from gender equality to termination.

After His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining outcomes, save in page length. His last book, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages in length of subjects Irving had examined more skillfully in prior books (inability to speak, short stature, gender identity), with a 200-page film script in the middle to fill it out – as if filler were necessary.

So we look at a recent Irving with care but still a faint flame of hope, which glows stronger when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages long – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 work is one of Irving’s finest works, set mostly in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and belonging with vibrancy, comedy and an total understanding. And it was a major novel because it moved past the themes that were becoming tiresome habits in his novels: wrestling, ursine creatures, Austrian capital, prostitution.

The novel opens in the made-up village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in teenage foundling the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a a number of years ahead of the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch remains recognisable: still using the drug, respected by his caregivers, beginning every talk with “In this place...” But his presence in Queen Esther is restricted to these opening parts.

The family fret about bringing up Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a young Jewish girl understand her place?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will enter Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would later become the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are huge topics to tackle, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not really about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s even more disappointing that it’s additionally not focused on the titular figure. For reasons that must connect to plot engineering, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for another of the couple's offspring, and gives birth to a baby boy, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this book is his tale.

And now is where Irving’s fixations return strongly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – of course – Vienna; there’s mention of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a significant designation (the dog's name, remember the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

He is a more mundane character than the female lead promised to be, and the minor characters, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are flat also. There are several nice set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a couple of ruffians get beaten with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle novelist, but that is is not the problem. He has consistently restated his arguments, hinted at story twists and allowed them to gather in the audience's imagination before bringing them to resolution in long, shocking, amusing scenes. For instance, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to disappear: remember the tongue in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the story. In this novel, a key figure suffers the loss of an arm – but we merely find out 30 pages before the end.

Esther comes back late in the novel, but only with a last-minute feeling of ending the story. We not once do find out the complete account of her experiences in the region. This novel is a disappointment from a novelist who in the past gave such delight. That’s the downside. The good news is that Cider House – I reread it together with this novel – yet remains wonderfully, 40 years on. So choose that in its place: it’s much longer as this book, but a dozen times as enjoyable.