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If some authors have an imperial period, in which they achieve the pinnacle time after time, then U.S. writer John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four substantial, satisfying works, from his late-seventies success His Garp Novel to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were rich, funny, big-hearted works, linking figures he refers to as “misfits” to cultural themes from feminism to reproductive rights.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning returns, aside from in word count. His last work, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages in length of themes Irving had examined more skillfully in prior books (selective mutism, restricted growth, gender identity), with a 200-page film script in the heart to extend it – as if filler were necessary.

Therefore we approach a latest Irving with reservation but still a tiny glimmer of hope, which burns brighter when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a only 432 pages long – “revisits the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 work is one of Irving’s top-tier works, located primarily in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who previously gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed abortion and identity with richness, comedy and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a major novel because it abandoned the topics that were becoming tiresome patterns in his books: the sport of wrestling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, sex work.

Queen Esther begins in the fictional community of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome young orphan the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a several decades prior to the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet Dr Larch remains recognisable: already dependent on the drug, respected by his staff, starting every speech with “In this place...” But his role in Queen Esther is confined to these opening parts.

The Winslows fret about parenting Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Zionist armed organisation whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would later become the foundation of the Israel's military.

These are huge themes to address, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is hardly about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s likewise not really concerning the main character. For causes that must connect to narrative construction, Esther ends up as a gestational carrier for a different of the couple's daughters, and delivers to a baby boy, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this book is Jimmy’s narrative.

And here is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both typical and particular. Jimmy goes to – of course – Vienna; there’s mention of dodging the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a pet with a significant designation (the animal, recall the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

He is a less interesting persona than the heroine hinted to be, and the secondary players, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are flat too. There are several enjoyable episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of bullies get beaten with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle author, but that is is not the problem. He has consistently reiterated his arguments, foreshadowed narrative turns and let them to build up in the audience's mind before leading them to fruition in long, surprising, entertaining sequences. For case, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to go missing: recall the oral part in Garp, the digit in His Owen Book. Those losses reverberate through the plot. In this novel, a central person suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we just discover 30 pages later the conclusion.

The protagonist comes back in the final part in the novel, but merely with a last-minute feeling of ending the story. We do not do find out the entire account of her time in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a letdown from a author who previously gave such delight. That’s the downside. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it in parallel to this work – yet stands up wonderfully, 40 years on. So read that instead: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but 12 times as great.