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If some writers enjoy an imperial phase, during which they achieve the summit consistently, then American writer John Irving’s lasted through a run of several long, satisfying books, from his late-seventies hit The World According to Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were expansive, witty, warm books, linking characters he refers to as “misfits” to social issues from gender equality to abortion.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, save in size. His most recent novel, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages of topics Irving had explored more effectively in previous works (mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a lengthy script in the center to fill it out – as if filler were necessary.

Therefore we approach a new Irving with reservation but still a small flame of hope, which burns brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages long – “returns to the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties book is among Irving’s top-tier works, located mostly in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

This novel is a letdown from a author who previously gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored termination and identity with colour, humor and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a important work because it abandoned the subjects that were turning into tiresome tics in his novels: grappling, wild bears, Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther begins in the made-up community of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome teenage ward Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a few years before the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays familiar: already addicted to the drug, respected by his staff, opening every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in Queen Esther is limited to these initial scenes.

The Winslows fret about bringing up Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a teenage Jewish female discover her identity?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will join the Haganah, the Zionist armed force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would eventually form the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are enormous topics to take on, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is not really about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s additionally not focused on Esther. For motivations that must connect to narrative construction, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for one more of the Winslows’ daughters, and bears to a male child, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the bulk of this story is his tale.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both typical and distinct. Jimmy goes to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a canine with a significant designation (Hard Rain, recall the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, sex workers, writers and penises (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a less interesting persona than the heroine hinted to be, and the secondary players, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped also. There are some nice episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a confrontation where a couple of bullies get assaulted with a support and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced writer, but that is is not the issue. He has repeatedly repeated his arguments, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to accumulate in the reader’s imagination before bringing them to resolution in long, surprising, funny scenes. For instance, in Irving’s works, anatomical features tend to disappear: recall the oral part in Garp, the digit in His Owen Book. Those absences resonate through the plot. In Queen Esther, a central person loses an upper extremity – but we just learn 30 pages before the end.

She comes back toward the end in the story, but just with a last-minute impression of ending the story. We not once learn the full story of her experiences in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who once gave such delight. That’s the downside. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – revisiting it alongside this novel – even now stands up wonderfully, 40 years on. So choose the earlier work instead: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but far as great.