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If certain authors experience an golden era, where they hit the pinnacle time after time, then U.S. writer John Irving’s extended through a run of four long, satisfying novels, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. These were rich, funny, big-hearted works, tying protagonists he describes as “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, save in word count. His last work, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages in length of subjects Irving had delved into better in earlier novels (mutism, restricted growth, gender identity), with a lengthy screenplay in the heart to pad it out – as if padding were required.

So we approach a recent Irving with care but still a tiny spark of optimism, which glows hotter when we find out that Queen Esther – a just four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is part of Irving’s very best works, set primarily in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, operated by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

The book is a failure from a writer who once gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and acceptance with richness, comedy and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a major book because it moved past the themes that were becoming tiresome tics in his works: grappling, bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

The novel starts in the made-up village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt young ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a several years ahead of the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch remains identifiable: even then using anesthetic, respected by his nurses, starting every speech with “In this place...” But his presence in this novel is confined to these initial scenes.

The family worry about raising Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a teenage Jewish girl understand her place?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will join the Haganah, the pro-Zionist paramilitary force whose “goal was to protect Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would later form the core of the IDF.

Those are huge topics to take on, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that Queen Esther is not really about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more upsetting that it’s also not focused on the main character. For causes that must relate to plot engineering, Esther turns into a substitute parent for another of the family's daughters, and delivers to a male child, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the majority of this story is his tale.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both regular and specific. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the city; there’s mention of dodging the draft notice through self-harm (Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic name (the animal, remember the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, authors and penises (Irving’s passim).

The character is a duller figure than the female lead promised to be, and the supporting figures, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are flat also. There are several amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a few bullies get battered with a support and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a delicate novelist, but that is is not the problem. He has repeatedly restated his arguments, foreshadowed story twists and let them to build up in the reader’s mind before taking them to completion in lengthy, shocking, entertaining scenes. For case, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to disappear: remember the tongue in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces echo through the story. In Queen Esther, a central character loses an limb – but we just find out 30 pages before the conclusion.

She reappears in the final part in the book, but just with a last-minute sense of ending the story. We not once do find out the complete story of her experiences in the region. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it in parallel to this novel – yet stands up wonderfully, four decades later. So choose that in its place: it’s double the length as this book, but a dozen times as good.