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If some writers experience an imperial phase, during which they achieve the pinnacle consistently, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a run of several long, rewarding works, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were expansive, humorous, big-hearted books, connecting characters he refers to as “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to abortion.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, except in size. His most recent work, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had examined more skillfully in prior books (mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a two-hundred-page film script in the heart to fill it out – as if padding were required.

Thus we come to a recent Irving with care but still a tiny glimmer of expectation, which burns brighter when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the world of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is part of Irving’s top-tier novels, taking place mostly in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Dr Larch and his protege Homer.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such joy

In Cider House, Irving wrote about abortion and belonging with vibrancy, humor and an total understanding. And it was a major book because it moved past the themes that were becoming annoying tics in his books: wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, the oldest profession.

This book opens in the fictional town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in teenage foundling the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a several generations prior to the action of The Cider House Rules, yet the doctor remains familiar: even then using anesthetic, respected by his staff, starting every speech with “In this place...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is limited to these early parts.

The Winslows are concerned about parenting Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a young Jewish female find herself?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will enter Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “purpose was to defend Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would subsequently establish the basis of the Israel's military.

Such are massive topics to address, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s disappointing that Queen Esther is not really about St Cloud’s and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more disheartening that it’s likewise not really concerning the titular figure. For motivations that must relate to narrative construction, Esther turns into a substitute parent for another of the Winslows’ children, and bears to a baby boy, the boy, in World War II era – and the majority of this story is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both regular and specific. Jimmy moves to – where else? – Vienna; there’s talk of evading the Vietnam draft through self-harm (Owen Meany); a pet with a meaningful title (the animal, meet Sorrow from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

He is a less interesting character than the female lead suggested to be, and the secondary characters, such as pupils Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor Eissler, are flat as well. There are several amusing episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of ruffians get beaten with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a delicate novelist, but that is not the problem. He has repeatedly restated his points, telegraphed narrative turns and enabled them to build up in the reader’s mind before bringing them to completion in long, jarring, funny sequences. For case, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to go missing: remember the tongue in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those absences reverberate through the story. In the book, a major figure loses an upper extremity – but we only discover 30 pages before the conclusion.

She comes back late in the novel, but just with a last-minute impression of concluding. We never discover the complete story of her experiences in Palestine and Israel. The book is a failure from a author who once gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – I reread it in parallel to this work – even now holds up beautifully, 40 years on. So choose that as an alternative: it’s twice as long as this book, but a dozen times as great.