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If some novelists experience an peak era, in which they reach the pinnacle repeatedly, then American novelist John Irving’s extended through a series of four fat, gratifying novels, from his 1978 breakthrough His Garp Novel to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. These were expansive, witty, compassionate books, tying protagonists he refers to as “outliers” to social issues from feminism to reproductive rights.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing results, aside from in size. His previous book, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages long of themes Irving had delved into better in earlier books (mutism, restricted growth, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page script in the middle to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Therefore we approach a new Irving with reservation but still a small spark of optimism, 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 Rules”. That 1985 work is one of Irving’s top-tier works, located primarily in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Larch and his apprentice Wells.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a author who previously gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored termination and identity with colour, comedy and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a significant novel because it moved past the subjects that were turning into tiresome tics in his works: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

The novel starts in the made-up community of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple welcome 14-year-old foundling the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a a number of generations prior to the action of His Earlier Novel, yet Dr Larch remains familiar: already addicted to the drug, adored by his nurses, beginning every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in the book is confined to these early scenes.

The family worry about parenting Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a young girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will join Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant group whose “purpose was to protect Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would later become the foundation of the Israel's military.

These are enormous subjects to take on, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s also not focused on the main character. For motivations that must relate to story mechanics, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for one more of the Winslows’ children, and gives birth to a baby boy, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the majority of this story is his tale.

And now is where Irving’s fixations return strongly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s discussion of dodging the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a dog with a meaningful title (the dog's name, recall the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, prostitutes, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

He is a duller character than the female lead hinted to be, and the supporting figures, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are one-dimensional as well. There are some enjoyable episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of thugs get assaulted with a walking aid and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a delicate author, but that is is not the issue. He has always restated his points, hinted at narrative turns and let them to accumulate in the audience's thoughts before bringing them to resolution in extended, jarring, amusing moments. For instance, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to be lost: recall the oral part in The Garp Novel, the finger in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the narrative. In the book, a central person is deprived of an arm – but we merely discover thirty pages before the conclusion.

Esther returns toward the end in the book, but only with a final impression of ending the story. We not once discover the complete account of her experiences in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a letdown from a writer who once gave such joy. That’s the downside. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – I reread it together with this book – still holds up wonderfully, four decades later. So read that instead: it’s much longer as the new novel, but 12 times as good.