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If some writers have an imperial period, where they reach the heights repeatedly, then American writer John Irving’s lasted through a run of several fat, satisfying books, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Such were expansive, funny, warm works, connecting figures he refers to as “outliers” to cultural themes from feminism to reproductive rights.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining results, aside from in page length. His last book, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of subjects Irving had explored more effectively in earlier novels (inability to speak, short stature, trans issues), with a lengthy film script in the middle to extend it – as if extra material were necessary.

So we come to a new Irving with caution but still a small flame of expectation, which glows brighter when we discover that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “goes back to the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 work is among Irving’s finest novels, located largely in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, operated by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer.

The book is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such pleasure

In Cider House, Irving discussed abortion and acceptance with colour, comedy and an all-encompassing understanding. And it was a significant novel because it moved past the topics that were becoming repetitive habits in his novels: grappling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther starts in the imaginary village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt 14-year-old ward the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a several generations before the storyline of Cider House, yet the doctor stays identifiable: still addicted to the drug, respected by his nurses, beginning every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in this novel is restricted to these initial parts.

The couple are concerned about parenting Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To answer that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the pro-Zionist armed group whose “goal was to protect Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would subsequently establish the core of the Israel's military.

These are massive subjects to address, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s frustrating that Queen Esther is hardly about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s still more upsetting that it’s likewise not focused on the main character. For motivations that must relate to narrative construction, Esther turns into a substitute parent for a different of the couple's daughters, and delivers to a son, James, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this book is the boy's narrative.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both common and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – Vienna; there’s mention of dodging the draft notice through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a meaningful name (the dog's name, remember Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a duller figure than Esther promised to be, and the supporting characters, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped as well. There are some enjoyable scenes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of thugs get battered with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a nuanced author, but that is is not the issue. He has repeatedly restated his arguments, telegraphed story twists and enabled them to build up in the reader’s thoughts before leading them to resolution in lengthy, shocking, entertaining moments. For case, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to be lost: think of the tongue in The Garp Novel, the finger in Owen Meany. Those absences echo through the story. In the book, a major figure loses an arm – but we merely discover thirty pages later the end.

The protagonist reappears toward the end in the book, but only with a final impression of concluding. We not once do find out the full story of her time in Palestine and Israel. The book is a failure from a author who once gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that Cider House – revisiting it alongside this work – yet stands up wonderfully, 40 years on. So pick up that as an alternative: it’s twice as long as this book, but far as good.