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If certain novelists enjoy an peak era, where they hit the summit consistently, then American novelist John Irving’s ran through a run of several substantial, rewarding novels, from his late-seventies hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. Such were rich, witty, compassionate works, connecting characters he calls “misfits” to cultural themes from feminism to termination.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing outcomes, except in size. His previous work, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages of themes Irving had explored better in earlier works (selective mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a 200-page film script in the heart to extend it – as if filler were needed.

Thus we come to a recent Irving with caution but still a faint flame of optimism, which burns brighter when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages in length – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 novel is among Irving’s finest works, set mostly in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

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

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored termination and acceptance with colour, wit and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a important book because it left behind the subjects that were turning into tiresome patterns in his books: wrestling, bears, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

Queen Esther begins in the made-up village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple adopt 14-year-old ward the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a several decades before the action of The Cider House Rules, yet Dr Larch stays recognisable: still dependent on the drug, beloved by his staff, starting every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in Queen Esther is limited to these opening scenes.

The family worry about bringing up Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “in what way could they help a adolescent Jewish female understand her place?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will become part of the Haganah, the Zionist armed group whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would eventually form the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are massive topics to address, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is hardly about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s still more upsetting that it’s likewise not really concerning the titular figure. For motivations that must connect to plot engineering, Esther turns into a substitute parent for one more of the Winslows’ children, and delivers to a son, James, in World War II era – and the majority of this novel is his story.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both common and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the city; there’s talk of dodging the military conscription through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a significant name (Hard Rain, meet the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, prostitutes, authors and genitalia (Irving’s passim).

The character is a less interesting figure than the heroine suggested to be, and the minor characters, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped also. There are some nice set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a confrontation where a few ruffians get assaulted with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a delicate writer, but that is not the difficulty. He has consistently reiterated his arguments, telegraphed story twists and let them to accumulate in the viewer's thoughts before leading them to resolution in lengthy, shocking, entertaining moments. For instance, in Irving’s books, body parts tend to be lost: recall the tongue in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the plot. In the book, a major character suffers the loss of an arm – but we just discover 30 pages before the conclusion.

Esther returns in the final part in the book, but merely with a final feeling of ending the story. We never discover the entire narrative of her life in Palestine and Israel. The book is a letdown from a novelist who in the past gave such delight. That’s the downside. The positive note is that Cider House – upon rereading together with this work – even now holds up wonderfully, four decades later. So choose that as an alternative: it’s double the length as this book, but a dozen times as enjoyable.