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If certain novelists experience an peak era, in which they achieve the summit consistently, then American author John Irving’s extended through a sequence of several long, gratifying books, from his late-seventies breakthrough Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Such were rich, humorous, compassionate works, linking protagonists he calls “outsiders” to social issues from women's rights to abortion.

After Owen Meany, it’s been declining results, save in size. His previous work, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages of themes Irving had explored more effectively in previous books (mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a 200-page screenplay in the center to pad it out – as if padding were needed.

Thus we come to a recent Irving with caution but still a small spark of expectation, which shines stronger when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a just 432 pages in length – “revisits the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is part of Irving’s finest books, located mostly in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer.

This novel is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving discussed termination and acceptance with colour, humor and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a major work because it left behind the themes that were becoming repetitive habits in his books: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

Queen Esther starts in the fictional community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt teenage orphan Esther from St Cloud's home. We are a several years ahead of the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch is still identifiable: still using anesthetic, respected by his nurses, opening every talk with “In this place...” But his appearance in the book is limited to these initial parts.

The family fret about bringing up Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a young girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will join the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed force whose “mission was to defend Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would later become the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are enormous topics to address, but having presented them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not really about St Cloud's and Dr Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s likewise not about the main character. For reasons that must connect to story mechanics, Esther becomes a substitute parent for a different of the Winslows’ children, and bears to a son, James, in the early forties – and the majority of this novel is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both typical and distinct. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s mention of dodging the draft notice through self-harm (Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic title (the dog's name, remember Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, prostitutes, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a more mundane character than the female lead hinted to be, and the supporting characters, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are flat too. There are some nice scenes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a fight where a handful of bullies get battered with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a nuanced novelist, but that is is not the issue. He has always restated his ideas, telegraphed narrative turns and enabled them to build up in the viewer's thoughts before taking them to completion in extended, shocking, amusing moments. For instance, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to disappear: recall the oral part in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the narrative. In this novel, a key figure loses an limb – but we only find out 30 pages later the end.

The protagonist returns toward the end in the book, but merely with a final feeling of ending the story. We do not learn the full story of her life in the region. The book is a failure from a novelist who once gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – I reread it in parallel to this work – even now remains excellently, after forty years. So pick up that in its place: it’s much longer as the new novel, but far as good.