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If a few authors experience an golden era, in which they hit the summit time after time, then American writer John Irving’s extended through a series of four long, gratifying novels, from his 1978 success Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. These were expansive, humorous, warm books, tying characters he describes as “outliers” to societal topics from gender equality to termination.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, aside from in size. His last book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages in length of themes Irving had examined better in previous books (inability to speak, dwarfism, gender identity), 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 reservation but still a faint spark of optimism, which shines hotter when we discover that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages long – “returns to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is part of Irving’s very best books, taking place mostly in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Dr Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

This novel is a failure from a author who in the past gave such joy

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored pregnancy termination and acceptance with richness, comedy and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a significant novel because it left behind the subjects that were turning into tiresome patterns in his novels: grappling, wild bears, Vienna, sex work.

This book opens in the fictional village of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in teenage ward the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a few decades ahead of the action of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch remains familiar: even then dependent on the drug, adored by his staff, beginning every address with “In this place...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is confined to these opening scenes.

The Winslows worry about bringing up Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a young Jewish girl understand her place?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will join the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary organisation whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would subsequently establish the basis of the Israel's military.

Such are enormous themes to address, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not actually about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s also not about the main character. For causes that must involve plot engineering, Esther becomes a substitute parent for one more of the family's offspring, and bears to a baby boy, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this novel is his story.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both typical and particular. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of avoiding the military conscription through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic name (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, sex workers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

He is a more mundane character than the heroine suggested to be, and the secondary characters, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are some nice scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of bullies get battered with a walking aid and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a nuanced writer, but that is not the issue. He has repeatedly repeated his arguments, telegraphed narrative turns and let them to accumulate in the audience's imagination before taking them to completion in extended, surprising, amusing scenes. For instance, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to disappear: remember the oral part in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the plot. In this novel, a major figure loses an upper extremity – but we only discover thirty pages later the finish.

The protagonist returns toward the end in the book, but merely with a last-minute impression of ending the story. We never discover the full account of her experiences in the Middle East. This novel is a failure from a author who previously gave such joy. That’s the downside. The upside is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading in parallel to this book – still remains wonderfully, 40 years on. So choose that as an alternative: it’s double the length as this book, but far as great.