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If some novelists have an peak era, in which they reach the pinnacle time after time, then American writer John Irving’s ran through a run of several substantial, satisfying books, from his 1978 breakthrough His Garp Novel to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were rich, funny, warm books, linking protagonists he calls “outliers” to societal topics from gender equality to abortion.

After A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, save in page length. His last novel, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages in length of themes Irving had explored more skillfully in earlier novels (inability to speak, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a 200-page screenplay in the middle to fill it out – as if padding were required.

Thus we look at a recent Irving with caution but still a tiny spark of expectation, which glows stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages – “returns to the world of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties work is one of Irving’s very best novels, taking place mostly in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

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

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and acceptance with richness, humor and an total empathy. And it was a important novel because it abandoned the themes that were becoming annoying patterns in his works: wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

The novel opens in the imaginary community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt young orphan Esther from the orphanage. We are a several years before the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays recognisable: even then using anesthetic, respected by his caregivers, opening every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in this novel is restricted to these early sections.

The couple worry about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a young Jewish female find herself?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will become part of the paramilitary group, the Zionist armed organisation whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would later form the foundation of the IDF.

These are massive subjects to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not really about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s still more disappointing that it’s also not really concerning Esther. For motivations that must connect to story mechanics, Esther becomes a substitute parent for a different of the couple's children, and delivers to a baby boy, James, in World War II era – and the majority of this book is his tale.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and distinct. Jimmy goes to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic name (the animal, recall the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a less interesting figure than the female lead suggested to be, and the minor figures, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are several enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a handful of thugs get battered with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not ever been a subtle writer, but that is is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly restated his points, telegraphed plot developments and let them to accumulate in the audience's imagination before taking them to fruition in lengthy, surprising, funny scenes. For case, in Irving’s works, anatomical features tend to disappear: recall the tongue in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the narrative. In the book, a key person suffers the loss of an arm – but we just discover thirty pages before the finish.

She comes back in the final part in the novel, but merely with a final sense of ending the story. We not once discover the entire narrative of her time in Palestine and Israel. This novel is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The upside is that Cider House – revisiting it in parallel to this novel – yet stands up beautifully, four decades later. So pick up that in its place: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but far as great.