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If certain writers experience an imperial era, in which they reach the summit consistently, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four long, satisfying works, from his late-seventies hit Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. These were rich, humorous, warm novels, linking characters he describes as “misfits” to societal topics from gender equality to abortion.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been waning outcomes, aside from in word count. His most recent novel, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages in length of subjects Irving had delved into better in earlier works (inability to speak, dwarfism, trans issues), with a lengthy script in the middle to fill it out – as if filler were needed.

Therefore we come to a recent Irving with reservation but still a tiny spark of optimism, which shines stronger when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages long – “revisits the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is one of Irving’s very best books, set mostly in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

The book is a failure from a writer who previously gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored pregnancy termination and belonging with vibrancy, comedy and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a major book because it left behind the topics that were becoming repetitive habits in his works: grappling, ursine creatures, Austrian capital, prostitution.

Queen Esther starts in the imaginary town of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome young foundling the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a few generations prior to the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch is still recognisable: even then using ether, beloved by his staff, opening every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in the book is limited to these early sections.

The couple fret about parenting Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will join the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “purpose was to protect Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would subsequently become the basis of the IDF.

These are huge topics to address, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not actually about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s additionally not focused on the main character. For reasons that must relate to story mechanics, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for a different of the couple's offspring, and delivers to a son, James, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this book is his tale.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both common and specific. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – Vienna; there’s discussion of avoiding the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a significant title (the animal, remember the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a more mundane character than the heroine promised to be, and the secondary players, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are some enjoyable episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of bullies get beaten with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a nuanced novelist, but that is is not the issue. He has consistently reiterated his points, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to accumulate in the audience's imagination before taking them to fruition in lengthy, shocking, amusing moments. For case, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to disappear: remember the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the digit in His Owen Book. Those absences resonate through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a central person loses an arm – but we merely learn 30 pages before the end.

She returns in the final part in the story, but only with a eleventh-hour feeling of wrapping things up. We do not learn the entire account of her life in the Middle East. This novel is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The good news is that Cider House – revisiting it together with this work – still holds up wonderfully, four decades later. So choose it as an alternative: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as good.