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If certain novelists enjoy an imperial era, where they achieve the summit consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s lasted through a series of several long, satisfying novels, from his late-seventies success His Garp Novel to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. These were rich, witty, warm works, linking protagonists he describes as “outliers” to societal topics from gender equality to termination.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing returns, except in page length. His last book, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages long of themes Irving had explored more skillfully in earlier books (selective mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a 200-page film script in the heart to extend it – as if extra material were necessary.

Thus we look at a new Irving with caution but still a faint glimmer of optimism, which shines brighter when we find out that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages – “goes back to the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties work is one of Irving’s very best novels, set largely in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Dr Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

This novel is a failure from a author who previously gave such pleasure

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored pregnancy termination and acceptance with vibrancy, humor and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a major book because it abandoned the topics that were evolving into repetitive habits in his novels: wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

The novel begins in the made-up village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple adopt teenage orphan the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a few years ahead of the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch stays familiar: even then dependent on the drug, respected by his caregivers, beginning every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in this novel is restricted to these initial scenes.

The family worry about raising Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish girl understand her place?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will enter Haganah, the Zionist armed force whose “goal was to defend Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would eventually become the core of the IDF.

Those are massive subjects to tackle, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not really about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s even more upsetting that it’s likewise not really concerning Esther. For causes that must relate to story mechanics, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for one more of the family's children, and gives birth to a male child, the boy, in the early forties – and the bulk of this story is the boy's tale.

And here is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both regular and specific. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – the city; there’s mention of evading the military conscription through self-harm (Owen Meany); a canine with a meaningful designation (the animal, recall the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

He is a duller figure than Esther hinted to be, and the minor characters, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are a few nice scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a handful of thugs get battered with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a delicate novelist, but that is isn't the problem. He has always restated his ideas, hinted at story twists and enabled them to build up in the reader’s mind before taking them to completion in extended, jarring, amusing sequences. For case, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to be lost: remember the tongue in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces echo through the narrative. In this novel, a central character suffers the loss of an arm – but we just find out thirty pages later the conclusion.

She comes back in the final part in the story, but just with a last-minute sense of concluding. We not once learn the entire account of her time in the region. This novel is a disappointment from a novelist who once gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Cider House – upon rereading together with this novel – yet stands up wonderfully, after forty years. So read it as an alternative: it’s much longer as this book, but far as enjoyable.