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If a few authors have an golden period, where they hit the heights time after time, then American author John Irving’s lasted through a run of four long, satisfying books, from his late-seventies hit Garp to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. These were generous, witty, warm novels, tying characters he refers to as “outsiders” to social issues from feminism to reproductive rights.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing results, aside from in size. His previous book, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages long of topics Irving had examined more skillfully in previous books (inability to speak, dwarfism, gender identity), with a 200-page screenplay in the heart to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

Therefore we approach a recent Irving with reservation but still a faint spark of expectation, which burns stronger when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a just 432 pages long – “returns to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is part of Irving’s very best books, set mostly in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

This novel is a failure from a author who in the past gave such pleasure

In Cider House, Irving explored termination and identity with vibrancy, comedy and an total empathy. And it was a important novel because it moved past the themes that were turning into tiresome tics in his novels: wrestling, wild bears, Vienna, sex work.

This book starts in the imaginary village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple adopt young orphan the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a few decades before the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor remains recognisable: still using anesthetic, adored by his nurses, beginning every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in the book is limited to these early scenes.

The couple fret about raising Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a young Jewish girl understand her place?” To answer that, we jump ahead 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 become part of the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary force whose “mission was to defend Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would eventually establish the basis of the IDF.

Those are massive topics to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not actually about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s still more upsetting that it’s also not really concerning the titular figure. For reasons that must relate to story mechanics, Esther becomes a gestational carrier for another of the Winslows’ offspring, and delivers to a male child, James, in World War II era – and the bulk of this story is the boy's story.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both common and particular. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the city; there’s mention of evading the military conscription through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a dog with a significant name (the animal, meet Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, writers and penises (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a more mundane persona than the female lead hinted to be, and the supporting players, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are one-dimensional as well. There are some enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a handful of ruffians get battered with a support and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a subtle author, but that is is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly restated his points, hinted at narrative turns and enabled them to build up in the audience's imagination before taking them to completion in long, jarring, entertaining sequences. For instance, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to disappear: remember the tongue in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the plot. In Queen Esther, a central figure loses an upper extremity – but we only find out 30 pages the end.

The protagonist reappears late in the novel, but merely with a final feeling of wrapping things up. We never learn the full account of her experiences in the region. The book is a letdown from a author who previously gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that Cider House – revisiting it in parallel to this book – yet stands up wonderfully, 40 years on. So read that in its place: it’s much longer as the new novel, but far as great.