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If a few writers have an golden phase, during which they hit the pinnacle time after time, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a run of several fat, rewarding novels, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. Those were rich, witty, big-hearted books, linking protagonists he calls “outsiders” to social issues from gender equality to reproductive rights.

After Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, aside from in word count. His last book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages in length of topics Irving had explored more effectively in earlier novels (selective mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a 200-page screenplay in the heart to pad it out – as if filler were necessary.

Thus we come to a latest Irving with reservation but still a faint glimmer of hope, which shines stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “revisits the world of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties book is part of Irving’s very best books, located mostly in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer.

This novel is a letdown from a author who previously gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored termination and belonging with colour, wit and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a major work because it left behind the topics that were turning into annoying patterns in his books: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

This book starts in the imaginary town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple adopt teenage orphan the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a a number of decades ahead of the events of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor remains familiar: already dependent on ether, adored by his nurses, opening every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in the book is confined to these early parts.

The Winslows worry about raising Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a adolescent Jewish girl discover her identity?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will enter the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary group whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would subsequently establish the basis of the Israel's military.

Those are enormous subjects to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is not really about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s still more disheartening that it’s additionally not really concerning Esther. For motivations that must involve narrative construction, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for one more of the family's daughters, and gives birth to a baby boy, the boy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this story is his story.

And at this point is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both typical and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a meaningful title (the animal, remember the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

He is a duller figure than the heroine promised to be, and the minor figures, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are some nice episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a handful of bullies get beaten with a support and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a subtle writer, but that is isn't the issue. He has always repeated his ideas, hinted at plot developments and let them to build up in the reader’s mind before leading them to fruition in extended, shocking, amusing sequences. For case, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to go missing: remember the oral part in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the plot. In Queen Esther, a major figure is deprived of an arm – but we just discover 30 pages later the end.

Esther reappears toward the end in the novel, but just with a last-minute sense of concluding. We never do find out the entire narrative of her time in the region. Queen Esther is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it alongside this novel – still remains wonderfully, after forty years. So choose it in its place: it’s double the length as the new novel, but a dozen times as enjoyable.