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If a few writers experience an imperial period, where they hit the heights repeatedly, then U.S. author John Irving’s ran through a sequence of several long, rewarding books, from his 1978 success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. These were expansive, funny, warm novels, connecting protagonists he calls “outsiders” to cultural themes from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining outcomes, save in page length. His last novel, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages long of topics Irving had delved into more skillfully in earlier works (selective mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a 200-page screenplay in the heart to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

Therefore we come to a recent Irving with reservation but still a faint glimmer of optimism, which burns hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 novel is part of Irving’s top-tier novels, located primarily in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a author who once gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored abortion and acceptance with vibrancy, humor and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a significant novel because it moved past the subjects that were turning into tiresome tics in his books: wrestling, bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther begins in the fictional community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome teenage ward the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a few decades prior to the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet the doctor remains recognisable: still dependent on the drug, respected by his caregivers, starting every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is limited to these opening parts.

The family worry about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary group whose “purpose was to protect Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would later establish the core of the IDF.

These are massive subjects to take on, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not actually about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s additionally not really concerning the titular figure. For reasons that must relate to plot engineering, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for a different of the Winslows’ offspring, and bears to a son, the boy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this book is his narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both typical and particular. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the city; there’s mention of evading the military conscription through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a pet with a significant name (the animal, recall Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, novelists and penises (Irving’s recurring).

Jimmy is a duller figure than Esther suggested to be, and the minor characters, such as students the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are one-dimensional also. There are some amusing set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a handful of ruffians get assaulted with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a nuanced novelist, but that is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly reiterated his arguments, hinted at story twists and enabled them to accumulate in the viewer's mind before taking them to fruition in long, shocking, funny scenes. For instance, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to disappear: think of the oral part in The Garp Novel, the finger in His Owen Book. Those absences echo through the plot. In the book, a major character is deprived of an arm – but we only find out thirty pages later the end.

She returns late in the book, but merely with a last-minute impression of wrapping things up. We never learn the complete story of her life in the region. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who in the past gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it together with this book – still stands up wonderfully, after forty years. So choose it as an alternative: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as enjoyable.