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If a few novelists enjoy an golden phase, in which they achieve the heights time after time, then American author John Irving’s extended through a sequence of several long, rewarding books, from his late-seventies success His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. These were generous, humorous, warm novels, tying figures he describes as “outliers” to cultural themes from feminism to reproductive rights.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining outcomes, aside from in page length. His previous work, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of subjects Irving had examined better in prior novels (mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a lengthy script in the heart to pad it out – as if extra material were required.

Therefore we approach a recent Irving with care but still a tiny spark of optimism, which glows stronger when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 work is part of Irving’s very best novels, taking place mostly in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer.

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

In The Cider House Rules, Irving wrote about abortion and identity with colour, humor and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a important novel because it moved past the themes that were becoming repetitive patterns in his works: the sport of wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, the oldest profession.

The novel opens in the made-up town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in teenage foundling the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a several decades ahead of the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch stays identifiable: still dependent on the drug, beloved by his staff, starting every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in this novel is restricted to these opening scenes.

The couple are concerned about raising Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a young Jewish girl find herself?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will join Haganah, the Zionist militant force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently form the core of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are huge themes to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not really about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s still more disappointing that it’s also not about Esther. For causes that must relate to plot engineering, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for a different of the family's children, and delivers to a baby boy, James, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this book is his narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both regular and particular. Jimmy goes to – of course – Vienna; there’s talk of avoiding the draft notice through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a pet with a significant name (the animal, meet Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, writers and genitalia (Irving’s passim).

He is a duller figure than the heroine promised to be, and the supporting figures, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are several nice set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a handful of bullies get battered with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a subtle novelist, but that is is not the problem. He has always restated his ideas, foreshadowed plot developments and allowed them to accumulate in the audience's mind before leading them to resolution in long, shocking, funny sequences. For instance, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to be lost: recall the tongue in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences echo through the plot. In the book, a major figure is deprived of an arm – but we only discover 30 pages before the end.

She reappears late in the story, but just with a eleventh-hour impression of concluding. We not once learn the complete narrative of her time in the region. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The upside is that Cider House – upon rereading together with this book – yet remains excellently, four decades later. So pick up it instead: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as good.