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If some authors have an golden phase, in which they hit the pinnacle consistently, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of several fat, satisfying books, from his 1978 breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were rich, humorous, warm works, linking figures he calls “outliers” to societal topics from women's rights to abortion.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, aside from in page length. His last novel, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had delved into better in prior novels (mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a 200-page film script in the center to extend it – as if padding were needed.

So we look at a new Irving with caution but still a small glimmer of expectation, which burns stronger when we learn that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages long – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 book is among Irving’s finest works, taking place primarily in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

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

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored termination and identity with colour, wit and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a important novel because it moved past the subjects that were evolving into annoying habits in his novels: grappling, ursine creatures, Vienna, the oldest profession.

The novel starts in the imaginary town of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome young orphan the title character from the orphanage. We are a few decades prior to the storyline of Cider House, yet the doctor is still identifiable: even then dependent on anesthetic, adored by his nurses, starting every address with “In this place...” But his role in the book is confined to these early scenes.

The family worry about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a young Jewish girl find herself?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will enter the Haganah, the pro-Zionist paramilitary group whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish communities from opposition” and which would subsequently establish the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are enormous subjects to take on, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that Queen Esther is not really about St Cloud's and Dr Larch, it’s still more disappointing that it’s also not about the main character. For motivations that must connect to story mechanics, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for a different of the Winslows’ offspring, and bears to a baby boy, James, in the early forties – and the bulk of this story is Jimmy’s story.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both typical and distinct. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of evading the draft notice through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a canine with a meaningful name (the dog's name, recall the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a duller persona than the female lead suggested to be, and the secondary figures, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor Eissler, are flat too. There are a few nice scenes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a few ruffians get beaten with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a subtle writer, but that is is not the problem. He has always restated his ideas, hinted at narrative turns and enabled them to build up in the audience's imagination before bringing them to resolution in extended, shocking, amusing sequences. For instance, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to be lost: remember the oral part in Garp, the finger in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces resonate through the narrative. In the book, a major person is deprived of an upper extremity – but we merely learn 30 pages before the end.

Esther reappears in the final part in the book, but merely with a eleventh-hour impression of ending the story. We not once discover the full narrative of her time in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who once gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – revisiting it alongside this book – yet remains excellently, 40 years on. So pick up the earlier work instead: it’s double the length as the new novel, but a dozen times as enjoyable.