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If certain novelists experience an imperial era, during which they achieve the heights consistently, then American writer John Irving’s lasted through a series of several long, satisfying books, from his late-seventies success Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Such were expansive, witty, compassionate novels, connecting characters he refers to as “misfits” to cultural themes from feminism to abortion.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, aside from in word count. His most recent work, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages in length of subjects Irving had explored more skillfully in earlier books (inability to speak, dwarfism, gender identity), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the heart to fill it out – as if filler were necessary.

Thus we approach a recent Irving with caution but still a tiny flame of optimism, which burns brighter when we find out that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages long – “returns to the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 work is part of Irving’s very best works, taking place mostly in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a writer who once gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving discussed abortion and identity with colour, humor and an total understanding. And it was a important book because it moved past the subjects that were evolving into tiresome habits in his works: grappling, bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

This book starts in the fictional village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt young ward the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a a number of decades before the events of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch stays recognisable: even then using ether, adored by his caregivers, opening every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in Queen Esther is restricted to these early parts.

The Winslows worry about parenting Esther correctly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a young Jewish girl discover her identity?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s later life in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will enter Haganah, the Zionist militant organisation whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would eventually establish the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are massive subjects to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s even more disheartening that it’s additionally not really concerning Esther. For reasons that must connect to story mechanics, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for a different of the family's children, and bears to a male child, the boy, in 1941 – and the majority of this novel is the boy's narrative.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both typical and specific. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s mention of avoiding the military conscription through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a canine with a meaningful designation (the animal, meet the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, sex workers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

The character is a more mundane figure than the heroine promised to be, and the supporting players, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are one-dimensional too. There are several amusing scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of thugs get assaulted with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a subtle novelist, but that is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly repeated his ideas, telegraphed story twists and allowed them to build up in the viewer's mind before leading them to resolution in lengthy, surprising, funny moments. For case, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to be lost: remember the tongue in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the story. In Queen Esther, a major figure suffers the loss of an limb – but we merely discover thirty pages later the finish.

She returns toward the end in the novel, but merely with a eleventh-hour sense of ending the story. We never do find out the complete account of her time in the region. This novel is a disappointment from a author who once gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading in parallel to this work – still holds up beautifully, 40 years on. So pick up it instead: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but 12 times as great.