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If a few novelists enjoy an peak period, where they reach the summit consistently, then American author John Irving’s lasted through a series of four fat, satisfying books, from his late-seventies breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were rich, witty, compassionate works, connecting protagonists he refers to as “outliers” to social issues from gender equality to abortion.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing returns, aside from in size. His most recent work, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages in length of topics Irving had examined more skillfully in prior works (selective mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a 200-page script in the center to extend it – as if padding were required.

Thus we approach a latest Irving with reservation but still a small glimmer of hope, which burns brighter when we find out that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages in length – “returns to the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is among Irving’s top-tier novels, set primarily in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Larch and his apprentice Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who previously gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored abortion and acceptance with richness, comedy and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a major novel because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into tiresome tics in his works: wrestling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, sex work.

This book opens in the imaginary village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple welcome young ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a a number of generations ahead of the action of The Cider House Rules, yet the doctor remains familiar: still using anesthetic, respected by his caregivers, beginning every address with “In this place...” But his role in this novel is confined to these opening scenes.

The couple fret about bringing up Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a young girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will become part of Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish towns from opposition” and which would eventually form the foundation of the IDF.

These are massive subjects to address, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not really about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s still more disappointing that it’s additionally not really concerning the titular figure. For causes that must connect to narrative construction, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for one more of the couple's children, and delivers to a male child, the boy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this book is his narrative.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both typical and specific. Jimmy moves to – where else? – the city; there’s mention of evading the draft notice through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a dog with a significant name (Hard Rain, recall the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, prostitutes, writers and genitalia (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a less interesting persona than Esther promised to be, and the minor figures, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are flat also. There are several enjoyable episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a confrontation where a handful of ruffians get battered with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a nuanced writer, but that is not the issue. He has consistently repeated his points, foreshadowed plot developments and allowed them to build up in the viewer's thoughts before taking them to resolution in lengthy, jarring, entertaining scenes. For case, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to go missing: recall the oral part in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those absences reverberate through the plot. In this novel, a key character suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we just find out thirty pages later the end.

She reappears toward the end in the book, but merely with a eleventh-hour feeling of wrapping things up. We not once do find out the entire narrative of her experiences in the Middle East. The book is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that Cider House – revisiting it together with this book – even now holds up excellently, four decades later. So read it in its place: it’s much longer as the new novel, but far as enjoyable.