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If some novelists experience an imperial period, where they hit the summit time after time, then U.S. author John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of four long, rewarding works, from his late-seventies success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were expansive, humorous, warm novels, connecting figures he calls “outliers” to societal topics from gender equality to termination.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing results, aside from in size. His most recent work, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages long of subjects Irving had examined better in previous books (selective mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a 200-page screenplay in the middle to fill it out – as if padding were needed.

Therefore we approach a recent Irving with reservation but still a tiny spark of expectation, which shines stronger when we learn that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “revisits the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is part of Irving’s top-tier novels, taking place largely in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

This novel is a letdown from a author who previously gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored abortion and belonging with colour, wit and an total understanding. And it was a major work because it moved past the topics that were evolving into annoying habits in his novels: the sport of wrestling, ursine creatures, Austrian capital, prostitution.

This book starts in the fictional town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple welcome teenage ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a several decades before the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet Dr Larch is still identifiable: even then dependent on ether, beloved by his staff, beginning every speech with “In this place...” But his presence in this novel is restricted to these initial scenes.

The Winslows worry about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a teenage Jewish girl understand her place?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will enter the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “goal was to protect Jewish towns from opposition” and which would eventually establish the core of the IDF.

Such are enormous topics to take on, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not actually about St Cloud's and Dr Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s additionally not about Esther. For causes that must connect to narrative construction, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for a different of the Winslows’ offspring, and bears to a male child, the boy, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this book is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and distinct. Jimmy moves to – of course – Vienna; there’s talk of avoiding the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic designation (the dog's name, meet the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a less interesting figure than the female lead promised to be, and the supporting players, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are several enjoyable scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a handful of bullies get beaten with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a nuanced author, but that is not the problem. He has consistently reiterated his ideas, telegraphed plot developments and let them to build up in the audience's mind before bringing them to fruition in extended, jarring, entertaining moments. For instance, in Irving’s books, body parts tend to be lost: remember the tongue in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the narrative. In this novel, a central person loses an limb – but we merely find out 30 pages later the end.

Esther returns toward the end in the story, but only with a last-minute sense of ending the story. We do not discover the full account of her experiences in the Middle East. This novel is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Cider House – revisiting it in parallel to this novel – even now remains excellently, after forty years. So pick up that as an alternative: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but far as enjoyable.