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If some writers have an golden era, where they reach the pinnacle time after time, then U.S. writer John Irving’s extended through a series of four substantial, rewarding novels, from his late-seventies hit The World According to Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. These were generous, witty, big-hearted books, connecting figures he refers to as “misfits” to societal topics from feminism to reproductive rights.

After A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, aside from in size. His last book, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had delved into better in prior works (inability to speak, restricted growth, gender identity), with a 200-page script in the center to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Therefore we approach a new Irving with care but still a faint glimmer of optimism, which shines brighter when we find out that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages in length – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is part of Irving’s very best works, taking place primarily in an orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving discussed termination and acceptance with colour, humor and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a significant novel because it left behind the themes that were turning into annoying patterns in his novels: wrestling, ursine creatures, Vienna, the oldest profession.

The novel begins in the fictional town of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in young ward the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a few generations before the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet the doctor remains recognisable: even then dependent on anesthetic, respected by his nurses, opening every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in this novel is confined to these opening sections.

The Winslows are concerned about raising Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will become part of Haganah, the Jewish nationalist militant force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would later establish the foundation of the IDF.

Those are enormous topics to address, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not actually about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s additionally not about the titular figure. For reasons that must relate to story mechanics, Esther ends up as a gestational carrier for another of the couple's offspring, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the majority of this book is Jimmy’s story.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both typical and particular. Jimmy goes to – of course – the city; there’s mention of dodging the draft notice through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a pet with a symbolic name (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, writers and penises (Irving’s recurring).

He is a more mundane figure than the heroine promised to be, and the supporting characters, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are several amusing set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a few thugs get battered with a walking aid and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a nuanced author, but that is is not the difficulty. He has consistently reiterated his ideas, telegraphed story twists and enabled them to build up in the audience's imagination before bringing them to resolution in long, jarring, entertaining scenes. For case, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to go missing: recall the oral part in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the plot. In this novel, a central figure loses an arm – but we only find out thirty pages later the conclusion.

She reappears in the final part in the novel, but only with a eleventh-hour impression of wrapping things up. We do not do find out the entire story of her time in the region. This novel is a letdown from a author who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that Cider House – I reread it alongside this work – yet stands up beautifully, after forty years. So read that in its place: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but a dozen times as great.