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If a few authors have an golden era, where they achieve the summit repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four fat, satisfying books, from his 1978 breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. These were rich, funny, big-hearted books, tying figures he calls “outsiders” to cultural themes from women's rights to abortion.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing returns, save in word count. His last work, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of themes Irving had explored more effectively in previous novels (selective mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a lengthy screenplay in the center to fill it out – as if padding were required.

Therefore we approach a recent Irving with caution but still a tiny glimmer of hope, which glows brighter when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages – “revisits the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is one of Irving’s finest works, set largely in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such joy

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored termination and acceptance with richness, comedy and an total empathy. And it was a major work because it abandoned the topics that were becoming annoying tics in his works: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

This book opens in the fictional village of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple welcome young orphan the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few generations prior to the action of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch remains recognisable: already addicted to anesthetic, respected by his caregivers, starting every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in Queen Esther is restricted to these opening parts.

The family worry about bringing up Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “in what way could they help a adolescent Jewish female discover her identity?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will become part of the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed organisation whose “purpose was to defend Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would eventually form the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are massive themes to take on, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that Queen Esther is not actually about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s likewise not really concerning the main character. For reasons that must relate to plot engineering, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for one more of the family's offspring, and bears to a male child, the boy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this novel is the boy's narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy goes to – naturally – the city; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a pet with a significant designation (Hard Rain, remember the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, sex workers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

The character is a duller figure than the female lead suggested to be, and the minor figures, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are flat also. There are a few amusing set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a handful of ruffians get beaten with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a subtle author, but that is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly repeated his ideas, foreshadowed narrative turns and let them to accumulate in the reader’s imagination before bringing them to resolution in extended, jarring, funny moments. For case, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to be lost: recall the tongue in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the plot. In this novel, a major figure loses an upper extremity – but we just find out thirty pages before the conclusion.

She reappears late in the story, but merely with a final feeling of wrapping things up. We never do find out the complete narrative of her life in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a failure from a writer who once gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it in parallel to this book – still stands up beautifully, four decades later. So pick up the earlier work instead: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but 12 times as great.