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If certain writers enjoy an imperial period, where they reach the pinnacle repeatedly, then U.S. author John Irving’s lasted through a run of several fat, satisfying works, from his 1978 breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were rich, witty, compassionate books, connecting figures he calls “outliers” to social issues from feminism to reproductive rights.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, aside from in page length. His most recent novel, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages long of subjects Irving had explored better in previous novels (selective mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a lengthy screenplay in the center to pad it out – as if filler were necessary.

So we approach a new Irving with caution but still a small flame of expectation, which glows stronger when we learn that His Queen Esther Novel – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties novel is one of Irving’s very best works, taking place largely in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

This novel is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such joy

In Cider House, Irving explored abortion and identity with colour, humor and an all-encompassing understanding. And it was a important novel because it abandoned the themes that were evolving into annoying tics in his novels: wrestling, ursine creatures, Vienna, prostitution.

Queen Esther opens in the imaginary town of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome young ward the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few decades ahead of the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Dr Larch stays recognisable: still addicted to anesthetic, respected by his caregivers, opening every address with “In this place...” But his appearance in the book is limited to these opening sections.

The family worry about raising Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish female find herself?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will enter Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed force whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would later form the core of the Israel's military.

These are enormous themes to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more disheartening that it’s likewise not focused on the titular figure. For motivations that must relate to story mechanics, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for one more of the Winslows’ daughters, and bears to a baby boy, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the majority of this story is Jimmy’s tale.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both common and specific. Jimmy relocates to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of evading the Vietnam draft through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic name (the animal, meet Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s passim).

He is a more mundane figure than the female lead hinted to be, and the supporting figures, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are a few enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a few thugs get assaulted with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a delicate author, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has consistently repeated his arguments, hinted at narrative turns and let them to build up in the viewer's mind before leading them to completion in lengthy, surprising, funny sequences. For example, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to go missing: recall the speech organ in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a central person loses an limb – but we merely discover thirty pages later the finish.

Esther reappears toward the end in the book, but merely with a final sense of ending the story. We never discover the complete narrative of her time in the region. Queen Esther is a letdown from a writer who in the past gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – I reread it in parallel to this novel – still holds up wonderfully, 40 years on. So pick up it as an alternative: it’s much longer as the new novel, but a dozen times as great.