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If some writers experience an imperial phase, where they hit the summit repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s extended through a series of several substantial, satisfying novels, from his late-seventies success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were generous, humorous, warm books, linking figures he refers to as “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing outcomes, except in page length. His most recent novel, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had explored better in previous works (selective mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the heart to fill it out – as if filler were required.

Thus we come to a latest Irving with caution but still a tiny spark of hope, which glows stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages – “revisits the world of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is part of Irving’s top-tier novels, located mostly in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Larch and his protege Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who in the past gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving wrote about termination and belonging with colour, humor and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a important work because it left behind the subjects that were turning into repetitive habits in his works: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, sex work.

Queen Esther starts in the fictional village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple adopt 14-year-old foundling the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a several generations prior to the events of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch is still recognisable: already dependent on the drug, adored by his nurses, beginning every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in this novel is restricted to these initial sections.

The family worry about parenting Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a young girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To answer that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will enter the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed group whose “purpose was to protect Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently become the foundation of the Israel's military.

Such are huge subjects to address, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is hardly about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s still more disheartening that it’s additionally not focused on the titular figure. For motivations that must relate to narrative construction, Esther turns into a substitute parent for another of the Winslows’ offspring, and bears to a baby boy, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the majority of this novel is the boy's story.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both regular and particular. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of dodging the draft notice through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic designation (the dog's name, remember the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, writers and penises (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a less interesting figure than the female lead hinted to be, and the secondary players, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are underdeveloped too. There are several nice episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a couple of bullies get battered with a support and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a subtle author, but that is is not the problem. He has consistently repeated his points, hinted at story twists and allowed them to build up in the reader’s thoughts before bringing them to resolution in extended, surprising, entertaining scenes. For case, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to be lost: recall the oral part in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses reverberate through the plot. In this novel, a key person loses an limb – but we only learn 30 pages before the end.

She comes back toward the end in the novel, but just with a final feeling of ending the story. We not once learn the entire story of her experiences in the Middle East. The book is a failure from a author who once gave such delight. That’s the downside. The positive note is that Cider House – upon rereading together with this book – still stands up wonderfully, after forty years. So pick up it in its place: it’s double the length as this book, but 12 times as good.