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If a few writers enjoy an peak period, in which they hit the summit repeatedly, then American writer John Irving’s ran through a run of several long, gratifying books, from his late-seventies hit Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were generous, witty, big-hearted works, connecting figures he refers to as “outsiders” to cultural themes from gender equality to abortion.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, aside from in page length. His most recent book, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages long of themes Irving had explored more skillfully in earlier works (mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a lengthy film script in the center to fill it out – as if filler were required.

So we look at a new Irving with caution but still a small glimmer of optimism, which glows hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “revisits the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 book is one of Irving’s top-tier novels, taking place primarily in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

The book is a disappointment from a novelist who in the past gave such delight

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored abortion and identity with richness, comedy and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a major novel because it abandoned the themes that were becoming annoying tics in his books: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

The novel opens in the made-up town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple welcome teenage orphan the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a few years ahead of the action of His Earlier Novel, yet Dr Larch stays familiar: still addicted to anesthetic, beloved by his caregivers, opening every address with “In this place...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is restricted to these opening parts.

The Winslows worry about raising Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish female discover her identity?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will become part of Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would eventually establish the basis of the IDF.

Such are huge subjects to take on, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not really about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s additionally not really concerning Esther. For reasons that must relate to plot engineering, Esther becomes a substitute parent for one more of the couple's children, and delivers to a baby boy, the boy, in World War II era – and the majority of this novel is Jimmy’s story.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both common and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of avoiding the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a significant title (the dog's name, meet the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a less interesting figure than the female lead suggested to be, and the secondary players, such as pupils Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are several nice set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a few ruffians get beaten with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced writer, but that is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly restated his points, foreshadowed plot developments and let them to build up in the reader’s thoughts before leading them to resolution in long, shocking, entertaining sequences. For case, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to disappear: think of the tongue in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a central person is deprived of an upper extremity – but we merely learn 30 pages later the conclusion.

Esther comes back toward the end in the novel, but only with a eleventh-hour sense of wrapping things up. We never do find out the complete account of her time in the region. The book is a letdown from a author who once gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – I reread it together with this work – still remains wonderfully, four decades later. So choose that in its place: it’s much longer as this book, but far as great.