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If some authors enjoy an peak period, during which they hit the heights repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s ran through a run of several fat, gratifying works, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were expansive, humorous, big-hearted works, linking protagonists he calls “outsiders” to social issues from feminism to abortion.

After A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing results, save in word count. His last work, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of themes Irving had delved into better in previous books (mutism, short stature, gender identity), with a lengthy film script in the middle to pad it out – as if padding were necessary.

Thus we come to a recent Irving with care but still a faint glimmer of expectation, which shines brighter when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages – “revisits the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is among Irving’s finest books, taking place mostly in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, operated by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

This novel is a disappointment from a writer who in the past gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving discussed abortion and acceptance with richness, wit and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a significant novel because it moved past the topics that were becoming repetitive habits in his works: wrestling, wild bears, Austrian capital, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther begins in the imaginary village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt 14-year-old foundling the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a several generations prior to the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch is still familiar: still using ether, adored by his staff, starting every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in Queen Esther is restricted to these opening scenes.

The couple fret about raising Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will become part of the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary force whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would eventually become the foundation of the Israel's military.

Those are huge themes to address, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is hardly about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s still more disheartening that it’s likewise not really concerning the main character. For motivations that must relate to plot engineering, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for another of the Winslows’ children, and gives birth to a male child, the boy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this book is his tale.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both regular and specific. Jimmy goes to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of dodging the military conscription through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a pet with a symbolic name (the animal, meet the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, novelists and penises (Irving’s passim).

He is a less interesting character than the heroine hinted to be, and the minor characters, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are underdeveloped too. There are a few amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a few bullies get assaulted with a support and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a subtle writer, but that is not the issue. He has consistently restated his points, telegraphed narrative turns and allowed them to accumulate in the reader’s imagination before taking them to completion in extended, jarring, entertaining scenes. For instance, in Irving’s books, body parts tend to disappear: think of the tongue in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences echo through the plot. In the book, a major figure suffers the loss of an arm – but we only learn 30 pages later the end.

Esther reappears in the final part in the book, but just with a eleventh-hour sense of ending the story. We not once do find out the full account of her experiences in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The positive note is that Cider House – revisiting it together with this work – even now stands up beautifully, after forty years. So choose that instead: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but 12 times as enjoyable.