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If some novelists have an golden period, during which they reach the pinnacle repeatedly, then U.S. author John Irving’s ran through a series of four substantial, satisfying books, from his late-seventies hit The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. These were expansive, funny, big-hearted works, linking figures he calls “outliers” to societal topics from gender equality to termination.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining results, aside from in word count. His previous novel, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of topics Irving had delved into better in earlier novels (selective mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the center to extend it – as if padding were required.

Therefore we approach a recent Irving with care but still a small spark of optimism, which glows brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages long – “revisits the world of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is part of Irving’s very best works, set primarily in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Dr Larch and his protege Wells.

The book is a letdown from a author who once gave such joy

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and identity with colour, humor and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a important work because it abandoned the topics that were evolving into repetitive patterns in his books: grappling, bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

This book starts in the made-up village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome young orphan the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a several years prior to the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor is still familiar: still dependent on anesthetic, respected by his nurses, beginning every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in the book is limited to these initial parts.

The couple fret about parenting Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a teenage Jewish girl discover her identity?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will become part of the paramilitary group, the Zionist paramilitary organisation whose “goal was to protect Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would eventually establish the basis of the Israel's military.

These are massive themes to address, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is hardly about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s still more disheartening that it’s also not focused on the titular figure. For reasons that must connect to plot engineering, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for a different of the Winslows’ children, and delivers to a baby boy, James, in 1941 – and the bulk of this book is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and particular. Jimmy goes to – naturally – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of evading the military conscription through self-harm (Owen Meany); a dog with a meaningful name (the animal, recall Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a more mundane persona than the heroine suggested to be, and the supporting players, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are underdeveloped as well. There are some enjoyable episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a handful of ruffians get battered with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a subtle writer, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has consistently repeated his points, foreshadowed narrative turns and let them to build up in the viewer's thoughts before bringing them to fruition in extended, shocking, funny scenes. For example, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to be lost: recall the tongue in The Garp Novel, the finger in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the plot. In this novel, a major figure is deprived of an arm – but we only find out 30 pages before the end.

Esther comes back late in the novel, but just with a last-minute feeling of ending the story. We not once learn the entire account of her time in the region. The book is a disappointment from a writer who previously gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The upside is that Cider House – upon rereading alongside this book – even now stands up beautifully, after forty years. So choose the earlier work as an alternative: it’s much longer as the new novel, but a dozen times as good.