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If a few writers have an peak phase, during which they hit the heights repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s ran through a series of four long, satisfying books, from his late-seventies hit The World According to Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were expansive, humorous, compassionate novels, linking characters he describes as “misfits” to social issues from gender equality to reproductive rights.

After Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, save in size. His last novel, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages in length of subjects Irving had delved into more effectively in previous works (mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page film script in the center to extend it – as if extra material were necessary.

So we look at a latest Irving with reservation but still a faint glimmer of expectation, which glows hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a just four hundred thirty-two pages – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 novel is part of Irving’s very best novels, taking place largely in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, operated by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

The book is a failure from a writer who once gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and identity with colour, humor and an total empathy. And it was a significant work because it left behind the topics that were becoming repetitive tics in his novels: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

Queen Esther begins in the made-up community of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt 14-year-old orphan the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few decades before the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch stays identifiable: already addicted to the drug, beloved by his nurses, beginning every talk with “In this place...” But his role in the book is restricted to these early sections.

The family are concerned about parenting Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a young girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To answer that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will join the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary group whose “mission was to defend Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would eventually establish the core of the IDF.

Those are huge topics to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not actually about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s still more disheartening that it’s likewise not focused on the titular figure. For causes that must connect to story mechanics, Esther becomes a substitute parent for another of the family's children, and bears to a son, the boy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this novel is his narrative.

And here is where Irving’s fixations return strongly, both typical and particular. Jimmy goes to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of dodging the military conscription through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a significant name (the animal, meet Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

Jimmy is a more mundane figure than Esther suggested to be, and the minor players, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are one-dimensional too. There are several enjoyable episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a handful of ruffians get beaten with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced novelist, but that is not the issue. He has repeatedly repeated his ideas, foreshadowed narrative turns and let them to gather in the viewer's mind before leading them to fruition in long, surprising, funny sequences. For example, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to disappear: remember the tongue in Garp, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those absences resonate through the story. In the book, a key person is deprived of an arm – but we only discover 30 pages before the conclusion.

Esther returns late in the novel, but only with a final sense of wrapping things up. We not once discover the full story of her life in the region. This novel is a letdown from a writer who in the past gave such joy. That’s the downside. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – I reread it in parallel to this novel – still remains beautifully, four decades later. So pick up it in its place: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but 12 times as great.