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If certain authors have an peak era, in which they hit the heights consistently, then American writer John Irving’s ran through a series of four long, rewarding books, from his late-seventies hit The World According to Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Such were generous, witty, compassionate works, linking figures he refers to as “outsiders” to societal topics from feminism to termination.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining results, except in word count. His previous novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of themes Irving had delved into more effectively in prior works (mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a 200-page film script in the center to pad it out – as if extra material were necessary.

Thus we approach a new Irving with caution but still a tiny spark of optimism, which burns brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a just four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 work is among Irving’s top-tier novels, located largely in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who once gave such pleasure

In Cider House, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and acceptance with colour, humor and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a important novel because it moved past the themes that were turning into tiresome patterns in his novels: grappling, ursine creatures, Vienna, prostitution.

Queen Esther opens in the imaginary village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt teenage orphan Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a several decades ahead of the events of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays familiar: already using ether, beloved by his staff, beginning every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in this novel is confined to these early parts.

The Winslows fret about parenting Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will enter the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary force whose “goal was to defend Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would subsequently form the core of the Israel's military.

Those are huge topics to address, 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 disheartening that it’s likewise not focused on the titular figure. For reasons that must involve story mechanics, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for a different of the family's offspring, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this book is his tale.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and distinct. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the city; there’s mention of evading the military conscription through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a canine with a significant name (the animal, remember the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, writers and penises (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a duller figure than Esther suggested to be, and the secondary players, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are several enjoyable scenes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of ruffians get battered with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced writer, but that is not the problem. He has repeatedly reiterated his ideas, foreshadowed plot developments and let them to gather in the audience's imagination before leading them to completion in long, jarring, funny sequences. For instance, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to be lost: remember the oral part in Garp, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those absences reverberate through the plot. In the book, a central person suffers the loss of an limb – but we just discover 30 pages the conclusion.

Esther comes back late in the story, but merely with a last-minute sense of concluding. We not once do find out the entire narrative of her life in the region. This novel is a disappointment from a novelist who once gave such delight. That’s the downside. The upside is that His Classic Novel – revisiting it alongside this novel – still holds up beautifully, after forty years. So choose that in its place: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but far as enjoyable.