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If certain writers enjoy an golden phase, during which they achieve the pinnacle repeatedly, then U.S. writer John Irving’s lasted through a series of several fat, rewarding books, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Such were rich, witty, compassionate works, linking characters he calls “outliers” to cultural themes from women's rights to abortion.

After Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing returns, save in page length. His most recent work, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of subjects Irving had explored better in prior novels (mutism, short stature, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page script in the heart to extend it – as if extra material were necessary.

Therefore we come to a recent Irving with care but still a tiny flame of hope, which glows hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages – “goes back to the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is among Irving’s finest novels, located largely in an orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored abortion and identity with colour, wit and an total compassion. And it was a important book because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into tiresome patterns in his books: grappling, ursine creatures, Austrian capital, sex work.

The novel starts in the fictional village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in teenage foundling Esther from the orphanage. We are a several generations ahead of the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet the doctor stays familiar: still addicted to anesthetic, beloved by his caregivers, beginning every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in this novel is confined to these opening sections.

The Winslows fret about raising Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a young Jewish girl find herself?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist armed group whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish towns from opposition” and which would eventually establish the foundation of the Israel's military.

Such are massive topics to take on, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not actually about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more upsetting that it’s additionally not about the main character. For motivations that must involve plot engineering, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for one more of the Winslows’ offspring, and bears to a male child, the boy, in the early forties – and the bulk of this book is the boy's tale.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both regular and particular. Jimmy relocates to – of course – Vienna; there’s mention of avoiding the draft notice through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a dog with a meaningful designation (the animal, meet the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, sex workers, authors and penises (Irving’s throughout).

He is a less interesting figure than Esther suggested to be, and the minor figures, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are flat as well. There are a few amusing set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a fight where a handful of bullies get assaulted with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not ever been a subtle author, but that is isn't the problem. He has repeatedly repeated his arguments, telegraphed story twists and allowed them to gather in the reader’s thoughts before bringing them to resolution in lengthy, surprising, amusing moments. For case, in Irving’s books, body parts tend to go missing: remember the tongue in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses resonate through the narrative. In the book, a major person is deprived of an upper extremity – but we merely discover thirty pages later the conclusion.

The protagonist reappears late in the novel, but only with a last-minute feeling of ending the story. We never do find out the complete narrative of her experiences in the region. The book is a failure from a writer who once gave such delight. That’s the downside. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading in parallel to this work – yet remains excellently, 40 years on. So pick up that instead: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but 12 times as enjoyable.