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If a few writers experience an golden period, where they achieve the pinnacle repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s ran through a run of several long, rewarding novels, from his late-seventies success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. These were rich, funny, warm novels, connecting characters he calls “outsiders” to social issues from gender equality to abortion.

After Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing results, aside from in page length. His most recent novel, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages in length of subjects Irving had examined more skillfully in previous novels (mutism, restricted growth, trans issues), with a 200-page film script in the center to extend it – as if extra material were necessary.

So we look at a recent Irving with caution but still a faint glimmer of expectation, which shines brighter when we find out that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages – “revisits the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 book is part of Irving’s very best works, located largely in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a author who once gave such delight

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed abortion and belonging with vibrancy, comedy and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a important work because it left behind the themes that were becoming tiresome patterns in his novels: grappling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

The novel opens in the imaginary town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in 14-year-old ward the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a several years prior to the storyline of Cider House, yet the doctor stays identifiable: already dependent on ether, adored by his staff, starting every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in the book is limited to these opening parts.

The couple are concerned about raising Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a young girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the Zionist armed organisation whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would later form the core of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are massive topics to take on, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not actually about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s even more disappointing that it’s likewise not focused on the titular figure. For reasons that must involve narrative construction, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for one more of the Winslows’ children, and delivers to a son, the boy, in the early forties – and the bulk of this novel is his tale.

And here is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both typical and particular. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – the city; there’s mention of evading the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a pet with a meaningful name (the animal, recall the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, sex workers, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

He is a duller character than the heroine promised to be, and the secondary characters, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are one-dimensional as well. There are some enjoyable episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a handful of thugs get battered with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a subtle author, but that is isn't the problem. He has consistently reiterated his ideas, foreshadowed plot developments and allowed them to accumulate in the audience's mind before taking them to completion in extended, surprising, funny scenes. For instance, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to disappear: think of the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces resonate through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a central person loses an arm – but we merely discover thirty pages later the conclusion.

Esther reappears in the final part in the book, but just with a final sense of concluding. We not once discover the entire narrative of her time in the Middle East. This novel is a letdown from a writer who previously gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that Cider House – revisiting it alongside this book – yet remains wonderfully, four decades later. So choose that instead: it’s much longer as this book, but 12 times as good.