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If a few authors experience an imperial era, where they reach the heights consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s extended through a series of several fat, gratifying works, from his late-seventies breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were generous, funny, compassionate works, linking characters he refers to as “outliers” to societal topics from feminism to abortion.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, save in page length. His most recent novel, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages long of topics Irving had explored more effectively in earlier novels (mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a lengthy screenplay in the heart to pad it out – as if padding were necessary.

Thus we approach a new Irving with reservation but still a tiny spark of hope, which glows brighter when we discover that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is part of Irving’s very best books, located largely in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving discussed abortion and acceptance with colour, comedy and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a significant book because it abandoned the subjects that were turning into annoying patterns in his works: grappling, bears, Vienna, prostitution.

The novel opens in the fictional village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple take in young ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a a number of generations before the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor is still recognisable: already dependent on the drug, adored by his nurses, starting every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in this novel is confined to these initial sections.

The couple worry about parenting Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish girl understand her place?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will join the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary force whose “purpose was to protect Jewish towns from opposition” and which would eventually become the core of the IDF.

Those are massive themes to take on, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that Queen Esther is not really about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s likewise not focused on the titular figure. For causes that must relate to narrative construction, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for a different of the couple's children, and delivers to a son, the boy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this story is the boy's tale.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both typical and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – Vienna; there’s discussion of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a pet with a meaningful title (the animal, remember the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

He is a more mundane persona than the female lead hinted to be, and the secondary characters, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are one-dimensional as well. There are some enjoyable episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a few bullies get beaten with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a nuanced novelist, but that is not the problem. He has always reiterated his arguments, foreshadowed narrative turns and allowed them to gather in the audience's mind before taking them to fruition in lengthy, shocking, entertaining scenes. For instance, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to be lost: think of the oral part in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces resonate through the story. In the book, a key figure suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we only learn thirty pages before the conclusion.

Esther reappears toward the end in the novel, but merely with a last-minute impression of wrapping things up. We not once do find out the complete account of her life in Palestine and Israel. The book is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that Cider House – revisiting it alongside this book – even now stands up excellently, four decades later. So pick up it instead: it’s double the length as this book, but a dozen times as good.