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If certain writers enjoy an imperial era, during which they hit the heights time after time, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a run of four long, gratifying novels, from his late-seventies success His Garp Novel to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. These were generous, humorous, warm works, tying protagonists he refers to as “outliers” to cultural themes from women's rights to abortion.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing returns, save in page length. His last book, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages long of themes Irving had examined more skillfully in earlier books (mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the heart to fill it out – as if filler were needed.

Thus we approach a latest Irving with reservation but still a tiny flame of optimism, which glows brighter when we discover that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages – “revisits the world of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties book is among Irving’s very best works, set mostly in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

This novel is a disappointment from a novelist who once gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored pregnancy termination and identity with vibrancy, wit and an total understanding. And it was a important book because it left behind the themes that were becoming tiresome tics in his books: wrestling, wild bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

The novel opens in the made-up community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple take in young foundling the title character from the orphanage. We are a several decades ahead of the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch is still recognisable: already using the drug, adored by his staff, opening every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in the book is confined to these initial sections.

The couple worry about parenting Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will become part of the paramilitary group, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “mission was to protect Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would subsequently establish the core of the Israel's military.

Those are enormous subjects to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is not actually about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more disheartening that it’s likewise not focused on Esther. For causes that must involve plot engineering, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for one more of the family's offspring, and gives birth to a male child, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the majority of this book is Jimmy’s narrative.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both regular and specific. Jimmy moves to – of course – Vienna; there’s talk of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a canine with a significant title (Hard Rain, meet the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, novelists and penises (Irving’s throughout).

He is a duller figure than Esther suggested to be, and the minor characters, such as students the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are flat also. There are a few amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a handful of bullies get assaulted with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a delicate author, but that is isn't the problem. He has consistently reiterated his points, foreshadowed plot developments and let them to accumulate in the reader’s mind before leading them to resolution in extended, surprising, entertaining sequences. For case, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to disappear: remember the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces echo through the story. In Queen Esther, a central character suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we only learn 30 pages the finish.

Esther reappears late in the book, but only with a final sense of ending the story. We never discover the complete account of her life in the region. Queen Esther is a letdown from a author who previously gave such joy. That’s the downside. The positive note is that Cider House – I reread it alongside this novel – even now stands up wonderfully, four decades later. So pick up that as an alternative: it’s double the length as this book, but far as enjoyable.