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If a few novelists have an peak era, where they achieve the summit time after time, then U.S. writer John Irving’s extended through a run of four long, satisfying novels, from his late-seventies success His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. These were generous, witty, compassionate novels, connecting characters he calls “outliers” to cultural themes from feminism to reproductive rights.

After Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, aside from in word count. His most recent novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages in length of subjects Irving had explored better in prior works (inability to speak, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page film script in the middle to extend it – as if filler were required.

Therefore we come to a recent Irving with care but still a tiny glimmer of expectation, which shines stronger when we discover that His Queen Esther Novel – a just four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 novel is one of Irving’s top-tier novels, set primarily in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

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

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored pregnancy termination and identity with vibrancy, comedy and an total understanding. And it was a important novel because it left behind the topics that were turning into repetitive tics in his novels: the sport of wrestling, bears, the city of Vienna, sex work.

This book begins in the imaginary village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple welcome young ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a few years prior to the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet Dr Larch stays identifiable: still using the drug, beloved by his staff, beginning every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in this novel is confined to these opening parts.

The family worry about parenting Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a adolescent Jewish female discover her identity?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will enter Haganah, the Zionist militant force whose “mission was to protect Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would eventually establish the foundation of the IDF.

Those are huge themes to address, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s even more disappointing that it’s also not focused on Esther. For motivations that must connect to plot engineering, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for one more of the Winslows’ offspring, and delivers to a baby boy, the boy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this novel is the boy's tale.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and particular. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s mention of avoiding the military conscription through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a canine with a meaningful designation (the dog's name, remember Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, sex workers, authors and penises (Irving’s recurring).

He is a duller figure than the female lead promised to be, and the supporting characters, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are flat too. There are several nice scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a handful of ruffians get beaten with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced author, but that is isn't the problem. He has consistently repeated his arguments, hinted at narrative turns and allowed them to build up in the audience's mind before taking them to resolution in lengthy, surprising, amusing moments. For example, in Irving’s books, body parts tend to disappear: recall the speech organ in Garp, the finger in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces resonate through the story. In the book, a major person is deprived of an upper extremity – but we only learn thirty pages the conclusion.

The protagonist comes back in the final part in the novel, but merely with a final impression of wrapping things up. We never learn the complete account of her life in the Middle East. The book is a failure from a novelist who once gave such joy. That’s the downside. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading in parallel to this novel – even now remains excellently, 40 years on. So read that as an alternative: it’s much longer as the new novel, but far as enjoyable.