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If certain novelists enjoy an golden era, in which they reach the summit repeatedly, then American writer John Irving’s extended through a sequence of several fat, rewarding works, from his 1978 hit Garp to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. These were expansive, humorous, big-hearted novels, tying protagonists he refers to as “outsiders” to social issues from women's rights to abortion.

After A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, except in page length. His most recent work, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages of subjects Irving had examined more effectively in earlier books (selective mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page script in the middle to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Thus we approach a latest Irving with care but still a tiny glimmer of optimism, which shines hotter when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages in length – “revisits the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 book is among Irving’s finest novels, set mostly in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

The book is a failure from a writer who previously gave such pleasure

In Cider House, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and acceptance with vibrancy, humor and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a significant work because it moved past the topics that were becoming repetitive patterns in his books: grappling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, sex work.

The novel starts in the made-up town of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome 14-year-old foundling the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few years prior to the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet the doctor is still recognisable: already addicted to anesthetic, beloved by his staff, opening every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in the book is restricted to these opening sections.

The couple are concerned about raising Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “in what way could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary group whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements 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 dodges out. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not really about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s likewise not really concerning Esther. For reasons that must connect to plot engineering, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for a different of the couple's daughters, and bears to a baby boy, James, in 1941 – and the majority of this story is Jimmy’s narrative.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both common and specific. Jimmy goes to – naturally – the city; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a canine with a significant designation (the animal, meet Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a less interesting persona than the female lead suggested to be, and the secondary figures, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are one-dimensional as well. There are some enjoyable scenes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of ruffians get assaulted with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a delicate writer, but that is is not the problem. He has repeatedly repeated his points, hinted at story twists and let them to accumulate in the viewer's thoughts before leading them to fruition in lengthy, jarring, funny moments. For example, in Irving’s works, anatomical features tend to be lost: remember the speech organ in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those losses resonate through the plot. In Queen Esther, a central figure is deprived of an upper extremity – but we merely discover thirty pages before the finish.

Esther comes back in the final part in the book, but just with a eleventh-hour sense of ending the story. We never discover the complete narrative of her time in Palestine and Israel. This novel is a disappointment from a novelist who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that Cider House – upon rereading alongside this work – still holds up wonderfully, four decades later. So choose that in its place: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as enjoyable.