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If a few novelists enjoy an golden era, in which they achieve the pinnacle repeatedly, then American writer John Irving’s extended through a sequence of several substantial, satisfying novels, from his 1978 breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were generous, witty, compassionate works, linking characters he calls “outsiders” to social issues from feminism to termination.

After A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning outcomes, except in size. His previous book, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages long of subjects Irving had examined more skillfully in previous works (mutism, short stature, gender identity), with a 200-page film script in the heart to fill it out – as if padding were necessary.

Thus we come to a latest Irving with care but still a faint spark of expectation, which shines brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages in length – “goes back to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is among Irving’s finest works, located mostly in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Dr Larch and his protege Wells.

This novel is a letdown from a author who once gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored termination and identity with richness, wit and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a important book because it left behind the topics that were evolving into annoying patterns in his books: grappling, ursine creatures, Vienna, the oldest profession.

The novel opens in the made-up town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in teenage orphan Esther from St Cloud's home. We are a several decades prior to the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch stays identifiable: already using anesthetic, beloved by his staff, beginning every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in the book is confined to these early parts.

The couple are concerned about parenting Esther correctly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a adolescent Jewish girl understand her place?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will become part of the paramilitary group, the pro-Zionist paramilitary organisation whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would later form the core of the IDF.

Such are enormous subjects to take on, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not really about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s even more upsetting that it’s additionally not about the titular figure. For reasons that must involve narrative construction, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for another of the family's children, and gives birth to a baby boy, James, in World War II era – and the majority of this story is the boy's narrative.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both common and specific. Jimmy moves to – naturally – the city; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a symbolic title (Hard Rain, remember the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a less interesting figure than the female lead hinted to be, and the supporting figures, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are one-dimensional too. There are several amusing set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a few bullies get beaten with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a delicate writer, but that is is not the problem. He has always repeated his ideas, foreshadowed narrative turns and enabled them to gather in the audience's mind before taking them to resolution in long, shocking, entertaining scenes. For instance, in Irving’s works, anatomical features tend to be lost: think of the tongue in Garp, the finger in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces echo through the plot. In the book, a major character suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we merely learn 30 pages later the finish.

She reappears late in the novel, but just with a last-minute feeling of wrapping things up. We not once discover the entire account of her life in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a letdown from a writer who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that His Classic Novel – revisiting it alongside this book – still remains wonderfully, 40 years on. So read the earlier work in its place: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but 12 times as good.