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If a few novelists enjoy an golden era, during which they hit the summit consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s ran through a series of several substantial, gratifying novels, from his 1978 breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were expansive, witty, warm novels, connecting characters he calls “misfits” to societal topics from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, except in word count. His previous novel, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages of topics Irving had examined better in earlier novels (selective mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page script in the middle to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Thus we look at a recent Irving with reservation but still a small spark of expectation, which burns stronger when we find out that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages in length – “returns to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is among Irving’s very best novels, taking place mostly in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

The book is a letdown from a writer who previously gave such pleasure

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and identity with vibrancy, humor and an all-encompassing understanding. And it was a important novel because it left behind the topics that were turning into repetitive tics in his works: wrestling, wild bears, Austrian capital, the oldest profession.

This book opens in the fictional town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome 14-year-old orphan the title character from the orphanage. We are a a number of decades prior to the events of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch remains familiar: even then dependent on the drug, beloved by his staff, opening every talk with “In this place...” But his role in this novel is confined to these initial scenes.

The Winslows worry about bringing up Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will join the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist armed force whose “purpose was to protect Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would later establish the core of the IDF.

These are massive subjects to address, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not actually about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s still more disappointing that it’s likewise not really concerning the titular figure. For causes that must involve story mechanics, Esther turns into a substitute parent for another of the family's offspring, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the majority of this novel is his narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s mention of evading the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic title (the animal, recall the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

He is a duller character than Esther promised to be, and the secondary characters, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are one-dimensional too. There are some enjoyable episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of thugs get assaulted with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not ever been a delicate writer, but that is isn't the issue. He has consistently repeated his ideas, telegraphed narrative turns and enabled them to build up in the viewer's imagination before leading them to completion in lengthy, shocking, amusing scenes. For example, in Irving’s works, anatomical features tend to go missing: recall the oral part in Garp, the finger in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces resonate through the narrative. In the book, a major person suffers the loss of an limb – but we just discover 30 pages before the finish.

The protagonist reappears toward the end in the book, but just with a eleventh-hour feeling of concluding. We do not learn the entire account of her experiences in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that Cider House – revisiting it together with this novel – even now holds up wonderfully, four decades later. So choose the earlier work as an alternative: it’s twice as long as this book, but 12 times as great.