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If a few writers enjoy an peak phase, in which they reach the pinnacle time after time, then American author John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of four long, gratifying novels, from his late-seventies breakthrough His Garp Novel to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. These were expansive, humorous, big-hearted novels, connecting figures he refers to as “outliers” to societal topics from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing outcomes, save in page length. His most recent book, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages of subjects Irving had examined better in prior works (selective mutism, short stature, transgenderism), with a lengthy script in the middle to fill it out – as if extra material were required.

Thus we approach a recent Irving with care but still a faint flame of optimism, which shines hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “returns to the world of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is one of Irving’s top-tier works, located primarily in an orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer.

The book is a failure from a author who in the past gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored termination and belonging with richness, wit and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a significant novel because it left behind the themes that were evolving into annoying habits in his books: grappling, ursine creatures, Vienna, sex work.

This book begins in the fictional town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome young ward the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few decades prior to the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet Dr Larch is still recognisable: even then using the drug, beloved by his caregivers, beginning every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in this novel is restricted to these initial parts.

The family are concerned about raising Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a young Jewish female find herself?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will enter Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant force whose “mission was to defend Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would later form the core of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are enormous subjects to address, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is hardly about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s still more upsetting that it’s likewise not about the main character. For causes that must involve narrative construction, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for a different of the family's offspring, and delivers to a baby boy, James, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this story is Jimmy’s tale.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy moves to – of course – Vienna; there’s talk of evading the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a meaningful title (Hard Rain, remember the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, sex workers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a less interesting persona than the female lead promised to be, and the secondary figures, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped also. There are some amusing episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a handful of bullies get beaten with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a nuanced author, but that is isn't the problem. He has repeatedly reiterated his points, foreshadowed story twists and let them to build up in the audience's imagination before bringing them to resolution in extended, jarring, amusing moments. For example, in Irving’s books, body parts tend to disappear: recall the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces resonate through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a major person is deprived of an upper extremity – but we merely discover thirty pages before the end.

The protagonist comes back late in the story, but merely with a eleventh-hour feeling of ending the story. We not once learn the complete story of her experiences in the Middle East. The book is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that Cider House – I reread it alongside this book – still stands up excellently, after forty years. So choose it in its place: it’s twice as long as this book, but 12 times as good.