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If some novelists have an peak phase, during which they hit the summit repeatedly, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s extended through a run of several fat, rewarding works, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Such were expansive, witty, warm works, tying characters he calls “misfits” to social issues from feminism to termination.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, except in page length. His last novel, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had delved into more skillfully in prior works (selective mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the heart to pad it out – as if padding were required.

So we come to a new Irving with caution but still a faint glimmer of expectation, which glows hotter when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “returns to the world of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is among Irving’s top-tier novels, set largely in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

The book is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed abortion and identity with colour, wit and an total understanding. And it was a important novel because it left behind the topics that were evolving into repetitive patterns in his works: wrestling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

This book starts in the imaginary village of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple welcome young ward Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a several generations prior to the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch remains recognisable: already dependent on anesthetic, respected by his nurses, starting every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in Queen Esther is confined to these initial parts.

The Winslows are concerned about raising Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a adolescent Jewish girl find herself?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will join Haganah, the Jewish nationalist militant group whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently become the basis of the IDF.

Those are massive subjects to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s frustrating that Queen Esther is hardly about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s even more disheartening that it’s also not focused on the main character. For causes that must relate to story mechanics, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for another of the Winslows’ offspring, and delivers to a male child, James, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this novel is the boy's tale.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both common and particular. Jimmy goes to – of course – Vienna; there’s mention of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a canine with a significant designation (the animal, meet Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

He is a duller character than the female lead hinted to be, and the secondary figures, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are one-dimensional also. There are several nice scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a few ruffians get assaulted with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a delicate writer, but that is not the issue. He has consistently restated his arguments, foreshadowed story twists and let them to build up in the viewer's imagination before taking them to resolution in lengthy, shocking, entertaining scenes. For case, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to go missing: recall the tongue in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a major figure is deprived of an limb – but we only learn thirty pages later the conclusion.

She comes back late in the novel, but just with a eleventh-hour sense of wrapping things up. We never do find out the entire story of her life in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who previously gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it in parallel to this novel – still stands up beautifully, 40 years on. So choose the earlier work instead: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but 12 times as enjoyable.