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If certain authors enjoy an golden phase, where they reach the pinnacle repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s extended through a sequence of four fat, satisfying books, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. These were expansive, funny, warm books, linking characters he refers to as “outsiders” to cultural themes from feminism to reproductive rights.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, except in word count. His last work, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages in length of themes Irving had examined more effectively in prior novels (inability to speak, short stature, transgenderism), with a 200-page film script in the middle to extend it – as if extra material were required.

Thus we approach a recent Irving with care but still a small flame of hope, which shines hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties work is one of Irving’s finest novels, set largely in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a writer who previously gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and belonging with colour, wit and an total compassion. And it was a significant work because it left behind the themes that were turning into repetitive patterns in his books: grappling, ursine creatures, Vienna, sex work.

Queen Esther opens in the fictional village of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in young ward the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a a number of decades prior to the storyline of Cider House, yet the doctor remains familiar: still addicted to the drug, beloved by his nurses, opening every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is limited to these early parts.

The family fret about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s Jewish, and “in what way could they help a young Jewish girl understand her place?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will join Haganah, the Zionist militant organisation whose “purpose was to defend Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would eventually form the core of the Israel's military.

These are massive subjects to address, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not really about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more disheartening that it’s additionally not focused on Esther. For motivations that must involve narrative construction, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for a different of the couple's daughters, and bears to a baby boy, James, in the early forties – and the bulk of this story is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both typical and specific. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the city; there’s discussion of avoiding the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a dog with a significant title (Hard Rain, remember Sorrow from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, authors and penises (Irving’s passim).

He is a duller character than the heroine hinted to be, and the supporting characters, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are underdeveloped also. There are several amusing scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a handful of thugs get beaten with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a delicate writer, but that is not the issue. He has repeatedly repeated his ideas, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to build up in the audience's imagination before bringing them to resolution in lengthy, surprising, entertaining moments. For case, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to disappear: remember the oral part in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses reverberate through the narrative. In this novel, a major figure loses an arm – but we merely learn thirty pages before the end.

The protagonist reappears in the final part in the book, but merely with a final impression of ending the story. We never discover the entire narrative of her experiences in the Middle East. The book is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that Cider House – upon rereading alongside this work – yet stands up wonderfully, 40 years on. So read it instead: it’s twice as long as this book, but far as enjoyable.