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If certain authors have an imperial period, in which they achieve the summit repeatedly, then U.S. author John Irving’s lasted through a series of four long, rewarding works, from his late-seventies breakthrough The World According to Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Such were generous, humorous, big-hearted works, tying protagonists he describes as “outsiders” to social issues from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing returns, aside from in page length. His most recent novel, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages long of subjects Irving had delved into more skillfully in previous novels (inability to speak, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a lengthy script in the middle to extend it – as if extra material were needed.

So we come to a recent Irving with care but still a faint glimmer of optimism, which glows stronger when we learn that His Queen Esther Novel – a mere 432 pages – “returns to the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties novel is part of Irving’s very best works, taking place primarily in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer.

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

In Cider House, Irving discussed abortion and identity with colour, humor and an total understanding. And it was a major work because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into annoying patterns in his works: grappling, wild bears, Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book starts in the fictional village of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome teenage ward the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a few decades prior to the action of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch is still familiar: already using the drug, adored by his staff, starting every address with “In this place...” But his appearance in this novel is confined to these opening sections.

The couple fret about bringing up Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the Zionist armed organisation whose “mission was to protect Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would subsequently form the basis of the IDF.

Such are massive themes to take on, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is hardly about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s likewise not focused on Esther. For reasons that must involve story mechanics, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for one more of the couple's offspring, and delivers to a baby boy, James, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this story is the boy's narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy goes to – naturally – the city; there’s discussion of avoiding the draft notice through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a dog with a significant designation (Hard Rain, meet the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a more mundane figure than the heroine suggested to be, and the secondary figures, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are one-dimensional as well. There are a few nice episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a confrontation where a few ruffians get battered with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a nuanced novelist, but that is not the difficulty. He has always repeated his ideas, hinted at plot developments and enabled them to accumulate in the viewer's mind before leading them to completion in lengthy, surprising, amusing sequences. For case, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to be lost: recall the oral part in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces echo through the story. In the book, a key figure loses an arm – but we only find out 30 pages later the conclusion.

The protagonist comes back late in the novel, but only with a last-minute sense of ending the story. We do not do find out the entire narrative of her time in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that His Classic Novel – I reread it in parallel to this novel – still stands up excellently, four decades later. So read the earlier work as an alternative: it’s double the length as this book, but far as enjoyable.