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If a few writers enjoy an imperial period, in which they achieve the summit consistently, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a run of several substantial, gratifying novels, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were expansive, witty, warm novels, connecting figures he calls “misfits” to social issues from feminism to reproductive rights.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, save in size. His previous work, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages in length of topics Irving had examined better in prior books (inability to speak, short stature, transgenderism), with a 200-page film script in the heart to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Therefore we approach a latest Irving with reservation but still a faint spark of expectation, which burns stronger when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages – “returns to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is part of Irving’s top-tier works, set primarily in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who once gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and identity with richness, humor and an total empathy. And it was a major book because it abandoned the subjects that were evolving into annoying habits in his works: the sport of wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

The novel starts in the fictional town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt teenage orphan the title character from the orphanage. We are a few generations prior to the action of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch is still identifiable: even then dependent on anesthetic, adored by his nurses, beginning every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in Queen Esther is restricted to these early sections.

The Winslows fret about bringing up Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a teenage Jewish girl understand her place?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will become part of Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would later become the basis of the IDF.

These are massive topics to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not really about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s also not about Esther. For reasons that must connect to story mechanics, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for one more of the Winslows’ daughters, and bears to a male child, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this book is his story.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both regular and particular. Jimmy goes to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of avoiding the Vietnam draft through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a dog with a meaningful designation (the animal, remember the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a more mundane figure than Esther hinted to be, and the secondary characters, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are flat too. There are a few amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a handful of thugs get beaten with a crutch and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a subtle novelist, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has consistently restated his points, hinted at story twists and allowed them to accumulate in the viewer's mind before taking them to fruition in extended, surprising, entertaining moments. For instance, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to be lost: think of the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the finger in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the plot. In the book, a major figure loses an upper extremity – but we just find out thirty pages the conclusion.

The protagonist returns late in the story, but merely with a eleventh-hour impression of ending the story. We do not discover the entire narrative of her time in the region. Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who in the past gave such delight. That’s the downside. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it alongside this work – yet remains beautifully, after forty years. So pick up it as an alternative: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but far as good.