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If certain writers experience an golden era, during which they reach the heights time after time, then American writer John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four fat, rewarding books, from his late-seventies success His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. These were expansive, witty, compassionate works, linking characters he refers to as “outliers” to societal topics from feminism to reproductive rights.

After His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining outcomes, except in page length. His previous novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages long of subjects Irving had delved into better in earlier novels (inability to speak, short stature, gender identity), with a 200-page screenplay in the center to extend it – as if extra material were necessary.

Therefore we approach a latest Irving with reservation but still a small flame of optimism, which shines hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages long – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is part of Irving’s finest novels, set mostly in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

This novel is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such joy

In Cider House, Irving wrote about abortion and acceptance with richness, wit and an total empathy. And it was a major work because it moved past the subjects that were turning into tiresome patterns in his novels: grappling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book starts in the fictional community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt young ward the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few years ahead of the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays familiar: even then dependent on anesthetic, adored by his nurses, beginning every address with “In this place...” But his role in the book is confined to these early scenes.

The Winslows are concerned about parenting Esther well: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a young Jewish female find herself?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will enter Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary organisation whose “goal was to defend Jewish communities from opposition” and which would subsequently become the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are huge themes to address, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not really about St Cloud’s and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s additionally not focused on Esther. For reasons that must relate to story mechanics, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for one more of the couple's daughters, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the bulk of this novel is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both regular and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of avoiding the draft notice through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic designation (Hard Rain, remember the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, prostitutes, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

He is a more mundane figure than the heroine hinted to be, and the supporting figures, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped as well. There are some enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a couple of ruffians get beaten with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a delicate writer, but that is not the problem. He has repeatedly restated his points, foreshadowed story twists and let them to build up in the viewer's imagination before taking them to fruition in extended, shocking, amusing moments. For instance, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to disappear: recall the tongue in The Garp Novel, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those losses reverberate through the plot. In Queen Esther, a central person is deprived of an limb – but we merely find out thirty pages later the finish.

She comes back late in the book, but only with a eleventh-hour sense of concluding. We never discover the complete account of her time in Palestine and Israel. The book is a letdown from a author who previously gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading together with this book – even now holds up beautifully, four decades later. So pick up that in its place: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but 12 times as good.