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If a few writers have an golden era, where they hit the summit repeatedly, then American novelist John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of four substantial, satisfying works, from his 1978 success His Garp Novel to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. These were generous, funny, big-hearted works, connecting figures he describes as “misfits” to cultural themes from women's rights to abortion.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning outcomes, aside from in word count. His most recent book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of topics Irving had delved into more effectively in earlier books (selective mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a 200-page script in the middle to pad it out – as if extra material were necessary.

Thus we look at a new Irving with caution but still a faint glimmer of hope, which burns hotter when we discover that His Queen Esther Novel – a mere 432 pages – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 work is part of Irving’s very best books, taking place largely in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer.

This novel is a disappointment from a novelist who in the past gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored abortion and belonging with colour, humor and an total empathy. And it was a major book because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into repetitive habits in his novels: grappling, bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

The novel opens in the imaginary town of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt teenage foundling Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a several years before the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch remains identifiable: even then dependent on ether, beloved by his nurses, opening every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in Queen Esther is limited to these initial parts.

The Winslows worry about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a young Jewish girl discover her identity?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will join Haganah, the Jewish nationalist armed group whose “mission was to protect Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would subsequently become the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are enormous themes to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s frustrating that Queen Esther is not actually about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s still more upsetting that it’s likewise not focused on the titular figure. For causes that must relate to plot engineering, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for another of the couple's children, and gives birth to a male child, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this novel is his tale.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both common and specific. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of dodging the draft notice through self-harm (Owen Meany); a canine with a significant name (Hard Rain, remember the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, novelists and penises (Irving’s recurring).

He is a more mundane character than the female lead suggested to be, and the minor characters, such as students the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are flat also. There are a few nice set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a handful of ruffians get beaten with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a nuanced writer, but that is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly reiterated his ideas, hinted at narrative turns and allowed them to gather in the viewer's mind before leading them to fruition in extended, shocking, amusing sequences. For example, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to disappear: think of the oral part in The Garp Novel, the digit in Owen Meany. Those absences reverberate through the plot. In this novel, a central character loses an limb – but we merely discover 30 pages later the end.

Esther comes back toward the end in the novel, but merely with a eleventh-hour feeling of wrapping things up. We do not discover the full narrative of her life in the Middle East. The book is a letdown from a writer who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – I reread it together with this work – yet holds up beautifully, after forty years. So choose it as an alternative: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as good.