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If some authors enjoy an peak period, where they reach the summit repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s ran through a series of four substantial, satisfying novels, from his 1978 breakthrough The World According to Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Those were generous, witty, compassionate novels, tying protagonists he refers to as “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, aside from in word count. His most recent work, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages long of topics Irving had delved into more skillfully in prior books (mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a 200-page script in the heart to fill it out – as if filler were required.

So we look at a new Irving with reservation but still a faint glimmer of optimism, which glows stronger when we discover that His Queen Esther Novel – a only 432 pages – “revisits the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is one of Irving’s finest novels, set mostly in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a writer who in the past gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored abortion and identity with colour, humor and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a significant book because it moved past the subjects that were evolving into tiresome tics in his books: wrestling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book starts in the fictional community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt 14-year-old foundling the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a few years prior to the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch stays identifiable: even then dependent on ether, adored by his nurses, opening every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is restricted to these initial scenes.

The couple worry about parenting Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will join the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently become the foundation of the Israel's military.

Such are massive subjects to take on, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not actually about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s still more disappointing that it’s also not focused on the main character. For causes that must involve narrative construction, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for a different of the family's offspring, and bears to a baby boy, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this book is Jimmy’s story.

And here is where Irving’s fixations return strongly, both common and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the city; there’s talk of avoiding the military conscription through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a pet with a symbolic designation (the dog's name, recall the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, sex workers, authors and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

Jimmy is a less interesting character than the heroine suggested to be, and the secondary figures, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are underdeveloped as well. There are some amusing set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a couple of ruffians get beaten with a support and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a subtle writer, but that is not the problem. He has repeatedly repeated his ideas, telegraphed narrative turns and enabled them to accumulate in the viewer's imagination before taking them to completion in long, jarring, funny moments. For instance, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to disappear: remember the oral part in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the story. In this novel, a central figure suffers the loss of an limb – but we just learn thirty pages the conclusion.

Esther returns in the final part in the novel, but only with a eleventh-hour feeling of concluding. We never do find out the full account of her time in Palestine and Israel. This novel is a failure from a writer who previously gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading together with this work – yet stands up excellently, four decades later. So choose it in its place: it’s much longer as this book, but a dozen times as good.