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If certain authors enjoy an peak era, in which they achieve the pinnacle consistently, then U.S. author John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of several long, rewarding works, from his late-seventies breakthrough Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. Such were generous, funny, big-hearted books, linking characters he refers to as “misfits” to cultural themes from feminism to reproductive rights.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining returns, save in size. His last book, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of topics Irving had examined more effectively in earlier works (mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page film script in the middle to pad it out – as if filler were required.

So we look at a latest Irving with care but still a small spark of optimism, which burns hotter when we discover that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages long – “returns to the world of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is one of Irving’s very best books, taking place primarily in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

This novel is a disappointment from a writer who once gave such delight

In The Cider House Rules, Irving wrote about abortion and belonging with richness, comedy and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a major novel because it moved past the topics that were evolving into tiresome tics in his works: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther opens in the made-up town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome 14-year-old ward the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few years prior to the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch is still recognisable: already addicted to ether, respected by his nurses, beginning every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in the book is limited to these early scenes.

The family worry about raising Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a adolescent Jewish girl find herself?” To answer that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will enter Haganah, the pro-Zionist paramilitary organisation whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently establish the basis of the IDF.

Such are huge themes to take on, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is not actually about St Cloud’s and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more disappointing that it’s also not really concerning the titular figure. For motivations that must connect to plot engineering, Esther ends up as a gestational carrier for a different of the family's children, and bears to a baby boy, James, in 1941 – and the majority of this book is the boy's tale.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both common and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through self-harm (Owen Meany); a pet with a significant title (the dog's name, remember the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

He is a more mundane character than Esther suggested to be, and the secondary characters, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are a few amusing scenes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a handful of thugs get battered with a support and a tire pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle novelist, but that is isn't the problem. He has repeatedly repeated his points, hinted at plot developments and enabled them to accumulate in the audience's imagination before taking them to fruition in lengthy, jarring, funny sequences. For instance, in Irving’s books, body parts tend to disappear: recall the speech organ in Garp, the finger in His Owen Book. Those losses resonate through the story. In the book, a major figure suffers the loss of an limb – but we only discover thirty pages before the conclusion.

The protagonist reappears in the final part in the book, but merely with a last-minute impression of wrapping things up. We do not learn the complete account of her life in the region. Queen Esther is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading alongside this novel – even now stands up excellently, four decades later. So choose the earlier work in its place: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but far as good.