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If a few writers enjoy an golden era, during which they achieve the heights consistently, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a run of several substantial, gratifying novels, from his 1978 success Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Such were expansive, funny, compassionate books, linking characters he describes as “outsiders” to cultural themes from feminism to termination.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing returns, except in word count. His previous novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages long of themes Irving had delved into better in previous novels (inability to speak, short stature, trans issues), with a 200-page script in the middle to fill it out – as if extra material were necessary.

Therefore we look at a new Irving with caution but still a tiny spark of hope, which burns stronger when we learn that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “revisits the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is among Irving’s finest works, located largely in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a writer who previously gave such joy

In His Cider House Novel, Irving discussed abortion and acceptance with richness, humor and an all-encompassing understanding. And it was a significant book because it moved past the themes that were becoming annoying tics in his novels: wrestling, wild bears, Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther begins in the made-up village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome teenage ward the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a a number of generations ahead of the action of Cider House, yet the doctor stays familiar: even then addicted to the drug, beloved by his caregivers, starting every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in Queen Esther is confined to these early scenes.

The Winslows are concerned about parenting Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will become part of the paramilitary group, the Zionist militant group whose “goal was to protect Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would subsequently form the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are huge topics to take on, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is hardly about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s still more disappointing that it’s likewise not focused on the main character. For causes that must connect to plot engineering, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for another of the couple's offspring, and delivers to a male child, the boy, in 1941 – and the bulk of this story is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both typical and particular. Jimmy goes to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of evading the military conscription through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic name (Hard Rain, recall Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

He is a duller figure than the heroine hinted to be, and the secondary figures, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped also. There are a few enjoyable scenes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of ruffians get battered with a walking aid and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a nuanced writer, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has consistently repeated his points, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to accumulate in the reader’s mind before bringing them to resolution in lengthy, shocking, funny moments. For example, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to go missing: remember the speech organ in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces echo through the narrative. In the book, a central character is deprived of an arm – but we only find out thirty pages later the end.

She returns in the final part in the story, but just with a eleventh-hour sense of ending the story. We do not discover the complete account of her life in the region. Queen Esther is a failure from a author who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading in parallel to this novel – even now remains beautifully, four decades later. So pick up it as an alternative: it’s double the length as this book, but far as great.