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If certain authors enjoy an imperial period, in which they achieve the pinnacle time after time, then American novelist John Irving’s extended through a sequence of four fat, gratifying books, from his 1978 breakthrough The World According to Garp to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were expansive, funny, big-hearted works, connecting characters he refers to as “misfits” to social issues from women's rights to termination.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning outcomes, except in size. His last novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages of topics Irving had explored better in prior books (mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the center to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Therefore we approach a recent Irving with care but still a faint flame of expectation, which shines stronger when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages in length – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is among Irving’s very best books, set largely in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who in the past gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and belonging with richness, humor and an total understanding. And it was a significant novel because it abandoned the topics that were turning into tiresome patterns in his works: grappling, wild bears, Vienna, sex work.

Queen Esther begins in the made-up community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in 14-year-old orphan the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a few decades ahead of the storyline of Cider House, yet Dr Larch is still identifiable: even then dependent on ether, beloved by his staff, starting every talk with “In this place...” But his role in this novel is restricted to these early sections.

The couple worry about raising Esther well: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a young girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will join Haganah, the pro-Zionist paramilitary force whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would eventually form the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are massive themes to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not actually about St Cloud’s and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more disheartening that it’s additionally not about the titular figure. For reasons that must involve plot engineering, Esther ends up as a gestational carrier for a different of the family's children, and delivers to a male child, the boy, in 1941 – and the majority of this book is Jimmy’s story.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both typical and distinct. Jimmy goes to – where else? – Vienna; there’s mention of evading the draft notice through self-harm (Owen Meany); a pet with a significant designation (the animal, meet the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, novelists and penises (Irving’s throughout).

He is a less interesting persona than the heroine hinted to be, and the secondary figures, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are underdeveloped as well. There are some enjoyable scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a handful of bullies get beaten with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a nuanced author, but that is not the problem. He has repeatedly restated his points, telegraphed narrative turns and allowed them to build up in the audience's mind before taking them to resolution in lengthy, surprising, funny sequences. For instance, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to go missing: remember the speech organ in Garp, the finger in His Owen Book. Those absences echo through the plot. In the book, a central character loses an limb – but we just learn thirty pages later the end.

The protagonist comes back late in the novel, but just with a last-minute impression of concluding. We not once learn the full story of her time in the region. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The upside is that Cider House – revisiting it together with this novel – yet remains wonderfully, four decades later. So pick up the earlier work as an alternative: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but far as great.