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If a few novelists experience an peak era, where they reach the pinnacle consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four substantial, gratifying works, from his 1978 hit Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. Those were expansive, humorous, big-hearted novels, linking protagonists he calls “misfits” to social issues from gender equality to termination.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, except in size. His last work, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages in length of subjects Irving had examined more skillfully in previous books (selective mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page script in the center to pad it out – as if extra material were needed.

Thus we come to a latest Irving with caution but still a tiny glimmer of expectation, which glows stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages long – “goes back to the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is among Irving’s finest books, taking place mostly in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer.

The book is a disappointment from a writer who once gave such pleasure

In The Cider House Rules, Irving wrote about abortion and identity with vibrancy, wit and an total compassion. And it was a important work because it moved past the topics that were evolving into annoying tics in his works: the sport of wrestling, bears, the city of Vienna, sex work.

Queen Esther starts in the imaginary community of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in teenage foundling the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a a number of decades prior to the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet Dr Larch remains familiar: even then dependent on anesthetic, adored by his caregivers, opening every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is restricted to these opening scenes.

The family worry about raising Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a adolescent Jewish girl find herself?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be a member of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will become part of the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary group whose “purpose was to defend Jewish towns from opposition” and which would subsequently become the basis of the IDF.

These are enormous subjects to address, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s still more disappointing that it’s also not focused on the titular figure. For causes that must relate to narrative construction, Esther ends up as a gestational carrier for a different of the Winslows’ offspring, and delivers to a son, James, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this novel is Jimmy’s story.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both common and distinct. Jimmy moves to – naturally – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of dodging the military conscription through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a symbolic name (the animal, recall Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

Jimmy is a less interesting persona than the heroine promised to be, and the minor players, such as students the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are flat as well. There are several enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a few ruffians get battered with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a nuanced author, but that is is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly restated his points, hinted at plot developments and enabled them to accumulate in the viewer's imagination before taking them to resolution in long, shocking, entertaining scenes. For instance, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to disappear: think of the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces resonate through the story. In this novel, a major person suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we merely discover thirty pages before the conclusion.

The protagonist returns toward the end in the book, but only with a final impression of ending the story. We never learn the entire account of her experiences in the region. This novel is a failure from a author who previously gave such joy. That’s the downside. The upside is that Cider House – upon rereading together with this novel – yet stands up beautifully, four decades later. So read the earlier work as an alternative: it’s twice as long as this book, but far as great.