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If some writers have an golden era, where they reach the pinnacle repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of four fat, gratifying novels, from his 1978 success His Garp Novel to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were rich, humorous, big-hearted works, tying characters he calls “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing outcomes, aside from in page length. His previous book, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages long of themes Irving had explored more effectively in previous books (mutism, restricted growth, gender identity), with a two-hundred-page script in the center to fill it out – as if padding were required.

Thus we look at a latest Irving with care but still a tiny spark of optimism, which burns stronger when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is part of Irving’s top-tier novels, set primarily in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his apprentice Homer.

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

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored pregnancy termination and acceptance with vibrancy, wit and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a important work because it moved past the subjects that were turning into repetitive habits in his works: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther begins in the made-up town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple take in 14-year-old ward the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a several generations prior to the events of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch remains identifiable: already dependent on the drug, respected by his caregivers, beginning every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in the book is restricted to these early sections.

The Winslows are concerned about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish female understand her place?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will enter the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist armed organisation whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would later establish the basis of the IDF.

These are huge subjects to address, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is hardly about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s additionally not really concerning Esther. For motivations that must involve story mechanics, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for one more of the couple's daughters, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this story is the boy's story.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both regular and specific. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s discussion of avoiding the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic name (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, prostitutes, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

Jimmy is a more mundane figure than Esther suggested to be, and the minor characters, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are flat too. There are a few amusing set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a few ruffians get beaten with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a subtle author, but that is not the problem. He has repeatedly repeated his points, hinted at story twists and enabled them to accumulate in the reader’s thoughts before taking them to resolution in extended, shocking, amusing moments. For example, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to be lost: recall the tongue in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses reverberate through the story. In the book, a central character suffers the loss of an limb – but we just learn 30 pages before the finish.

Esther comes back late in the story, but just with a final sense of concluding. We not once do find out the full story of her time in Palestine and Israel. The book is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading together with this novel – still stands up excellently, four decades later. So choose that as an alternative: it’s twice as long as this book, but far as good.