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If a few writers enjoy an golden era, during which they reach the heights repeatedly, then U.S. writer John Irving’s lasted through a series of several substantial, gratifying works, from his 1978 breakthrough The World According to Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. Such were generous, funny, warm works, linking figures he refers to as “misfits” to cultural themes from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, except in size. His most recent book, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages of themes Irving had examined better in previous works (selective mutism, short stature, gender identity), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the heart to extend it – as if extra material were required.

Therefore we look at a recent Irving with care but still a tiny spark of optimism, which shines brighter when we discover that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages long – “returns to the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is among Irving’s finest books, located largely in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who once gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored pregnancy termination and acceptance with colour, comedy and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a significant book because it moved past the themes that were becoming tiresome patterns in his books: the sport of wrestling, bears, the city of Vienna, sex work.

This book starts in the made-up town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt young ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a several generations ahead of the events of Cider House, yet the doctor stays identifiable: still dependent on anesthetic, respected by his caregivers, beginning every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in Queen Esther is limited to these initial parts.

The couple worry about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish girl understand her place?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to Palestine, where she will join the paramilitary group, the pro-Zionist armed organisation whose “purpose was to defend Jewish communities from opposition” and which would later form the basis of the IDF.

Such are massive subjects to address, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not really about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s even more upsetting that it’s also not focused on Esther. For motivations that must connect to narrative construction, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for another of the Winslows’ offspring, and gives birth to a baby boy, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the bulk of this novel is his narrative.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both regular and specific. Jimmy goes to – where else? – Vienna; there’s discussion of avoiding the military conscription through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a meaningful designation (the animal, remember the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a duller persona than Esther promised to be, and the secondary figures, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor Eissler, are underdeveloped as well. There are some nice scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a handful of ruffians get beaten with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a delicate novelist, but that is not the difficulty. He has consistently repeated his ideas, hinted at plot developments and allowed them to gather in the audience's thoughts before leading them to resolution in extended, jarring, funny moments. For case, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to go missing: think of the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses resonate through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a key figure suffers the loss of an limb – but we merely learn thirty pages before the conclusion.

The protagonist reappears late in the story, but merely with a eleventh-hour sense of concluding. We do not learn the full story of her time in the region. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The positive note is that Cider House – I reread it in parallel to this work – still remains excellently, 40 years on. So choose the earlier work in its place: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but a dozen times as great.