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If a few novelists experience an peak phase, during which they achieve the summit repeatedly, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a sequence of four substantial, rewarding works, from his 1978 breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were expansive, funny, big-hearted works, linking protagonists he refers to as “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to abortion.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing outcomes, except in word count. His previous book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages long of subjects Irving had examined better in earlier works (selective mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a 200-page film script in the center to extend it – as if padding were required.

So we look at a latest Irving with caution but still a tiny spark of hope, which shines brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is among Irving’s finest novels, set largely in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

The book is a letdown from a novelist who once gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about abortion and identity with vibrancy, humor and an total empathy. And it was a important work because it moved past the subjects that were turning into repetitive habits in his novels: grappling, ursine creatures, Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book begins in the fictional town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple welcome teenage ward Esther from St Cloud's home. We are a few decades prior to the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch stays familiar: still addicted to ether, adored by his staff, beginning every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in this novel is restricted to these opening sections.

The couple fret about parenting Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish female discover her identity?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will join the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed group whose “purpose was to protect Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would eventually form the basis of the Israel's military.

Such are huge subjects to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that Queen Esther is hardly about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s even more upsetting that it’s also not about the main character. For causes that must involve plot engineering, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for one more of the couple's children, and delivers to a baby boy, the boy, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this story is his story.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both common and particular. Jimmy moves to – of course – Vienna; there’s mention of dodging the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a significant designation (the dog's name, recall the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

He is a duller persona than Esther suggested to be, and the secondary players, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are flat as well. There are some amusing episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of thugs get battered with a crutch and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a delicate author, but that is not the problem. He has repeatedly restated his ideas, hinted at narrative turns and allowed them to gather in the reader’s thoughts before bringing them to completion in extended, shocking, funny sequences. For instance, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to be lost: recall the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the finger in Owen Meany. Those absences reverberate through the plot. In this novel, a major person is deprived of an arm – but we merely learn thirty pages later the conclusion.

Esther comes back late in the story, but only with a final impression of ending the story. We do not do find out the full narrative of her time in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a failure from a author who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading together with this book – yet remains wonderfully, after forty years. So pick up that instead: it’s much longer as the new novel, but a dozen times as great.