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If certain writers experience an imperial period, in which they achieve the heights consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s extended through a sequence of several substantial, rewarding novels, from his 1978 hit Garp to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were generous, funny, warm novels, tying figures he refers to as “outsiders” to societal topics from feminism to termination.

After Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, aside from in size. His previous book, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages long of themes Irving had explored more effectively in earlier novels (mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page script in the center to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

So we look at a latest Irving with caution but still a tiny glimmer of expectation, which burns stronger when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a just 432 pages – “revisits the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 book is among Irving’s very best works, located primarily in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

This novel is a letdown from a novelist who once gave such pleasure

In Cider House, Irving explored abortion and belonging with vibrancy, humor and an total empathy. And it was a major novel because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into tiresome habits in his books: grappling, bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

This book opens in the imaginary community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the twentieth century's dawn, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome 14-year-old foundling the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a a number of generations prior to the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays identifiable: even then dependent on the drug, adored by his staff, opening every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in the book is limited to these early sections.

The Winslows worry about parenting Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a young Jewish female understand her place?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be a member of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will enter the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist militant group whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would eventually establish the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are huge themes to take on, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is hardly about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s also not focused on the main character. For reasons that must involve narrative construction, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for a different of the family's offspring, and bears to a son, James, in the early forties – and the majority of this novel is his story.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both common and particular. Jimmy moves to – naturally – Vienna; there’s talk of avoiding the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a pet with a significant title (the animal, recall the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, sex workers, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a duller persona than the heroine promised to be, and the supporting characters, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are some amusing scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a few bullies get beaten with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a delicate author, but that is not the difficulty. He has consistently reiterated his ideas, foreshadowed narrative turns and enabled them to accumulate in the reader’s thoughts before bringing them to resolution in lengthy, surprising, funny scenes. For instance, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to be lost: remember the speech organ in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the plot. In the book, a key person suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we just learn thirty pages later the finish.

She reappears in the final part in the novel, but only with a last-minute feeling of wrapping things up. We not once do find out the full account of her life in the region. Queen Esther is a failure from a novelist who once gave such joy. That’s the downside. The upside is that His Classic Novel – I reread it in parallel to this work – yet stands up beautifully, 40 years on. So choose it instead: it’s double the length as this book, but 12 times as good.