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If certain writers have an peak phase, in which they achieve the pinnacle repeatedly, then U.S. writer John Irving’s ran through a sequence of several long, gratifying novels, from his 1978 hit The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Such were generous, funny, compassionate books, connecting protagonists he calls “misfits” to social issues from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing outcomes, aside from in page length. His previous book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of topics Irving had delved into better in prior novels (selective mutism, short stature, transgenderism), with a 200-page script in the center to extend it – as if filler were needed.

So we approach a recent Irving with care but still a small glimmer of hope, which shines hotter when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “revisits the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 work is part of Irving’s very best works, set mostly in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a writer who in the past gave such joy

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored pregnancy termination and identity with richness, wit and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a major work because it moved past the subjects that were evolving into tiresome patterns in his books: grappling, bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book begins in the fictional village of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in young foundling the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a several decades prior to the storyline of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch stays familiar: still addicted to the drug, respected by his nurses, opening every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in the book is confined to these opening parts.

The family are concerned about raising Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a young girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the pro-Zionist militant organisation whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would later establish the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are huge themes to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not actually about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s even more disappointing that it’s also not focused on the titular figure. For motivations that must involve plot engineering, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for another of the family's children, and bears to a male child, James, in 1941 – and the majority of this story is his tale.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both common and distinct. Jimmy moves to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of evading the Vietnam draft through self-harm (Owen Meany); a dog with a symbolic name (the dog's name, remember the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, authors and penises (Irving’s passim).

The character is a less interesting persona than the heroine suggested to be, and the supporting characters, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are several nice scenes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a handful of thugs get beaten with a support and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced writer, but that is not the issue. He has always reiterated his points, hinted at plot developments and enabled them to gather in the audience's imagination before leading them to fruition in extended, surprising, entertaining scenes. For example, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to go missing: recall the tongue in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses reverberate through the narrative. In this novel, a major figure suffers the loss of an arm – but we merely discover 30 pages the conclusion.

She reappears toward the end in the novel, but merely with a final feeling of ending the story. We not once learn the entire narrative of her time in the Middle East. The book is a failure from a author who in the past gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it in parallel to this work – yet stands up wonderfully, 40 years on. So choose it in its place: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but 12 times as great.