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If a few novelists enjoy an imperial era, in which they achieve the summit time after time, then American novelist John Irving’s extended through a series of four long, gratifying novels, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were expansive, funny, warm works, connecting characters he refers to as “outliers” to cultural themes from women's rights to abortion.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning outcomes, except in word count. His most recent book, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages long of subjects Irving had delved into better in earlier works (mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page film script in the middle to fill it out – as if filler were required.

Therefore we come to a latest Irving with caution but still a small spark of optimism, which glows stronger when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is part of Irving’s top-tier works, taking place largely in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his assistant Wells.

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

In Cider House, Irving wrote about termination and belonging with richness, comedy and an total compassion. And it was a important novel because it moved past the themes that were becoming tiresome patterns in his works: wrestling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

This book begins in the imaginary community of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt young foundling Esther from the orphanage. We are a a number of years before the action of The Cider House Rules, yet the doctor is still identifiable: still using the drug, adored by his caregivers, beginning every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in the book is confined to these opening scenes.

The Winslows worry about bringing up Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a young Jewish female understand her place?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Zionist armed group whose “goal was to defend Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would later form the core of the Israel's military.

Those are enormous themes to take on, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that Queen Esther is hardly about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s likewise not focused on the titular figure. For motivations that must relate to narrative construction, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for a different of the couple's daughters, and gives birth to a son, James, in 1941 – and the majority of this story is his narrative.

And now is where Irving’s fixations return strongly, both common and particular. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of avoiding the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a dog with a significant name (the animal, remember the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, novelists and penises (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a duller figure than Esther suggested to be, and the supporting players, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are one-dimensional too. There are a few enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a few bullies get battered with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a delicate novelist, but that is is not the difficulty. He has always reiterated his arguments, foreshadowed plot developments and allowed them to build up in the viewer's mind before leading them to completion in long, surprising, entertaining sequences. For instance, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to go missing: think of the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences reverberate through the story. In this novel, a major person loses an upper extremity – but we only find out 30 pages before the conclusion.

Esther reappears toward the end in the book, but only with a eleventh-hour sense of wrapping things up. We not once discover the entire narrative of her life in the Middle East. This novel is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The upside is that Cider House – upon rereading together with this book – even now remains beautifully, 40 years on. So pick up it in its place: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but a dozen times as good.