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If a few writers have an golden phase, in which they reach the pinnacle time after time, then U.S. writer John Irving’s lasted through a run of four long, gratifying books, from his late-seventies breakthrough The World According to Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Those were rich, witty, warm works, tying protagonists he refers to as “misfits” to cultural themes from gender equality to termination.

After His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing results, save in size. His most recent work, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of subjects Irving had explored more skillfully in previous novels (selective mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a two-hundred-page film script in the center to extend it – as if extra material were required.

Thus we look at a latest Irving with caution but still a tiny glimmer of optimism, which burns brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages in length – “revisits the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is among Irving’s very best works, located primarily in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, operated by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer.

Queen Esther is a failure from a author who previously gave such pleasure

In Cider House, Irving explored abortion and belonging with richness, wit and an all-encompassing understanding. And it was a major work because it left behind the themes that were becoming tiresome habits in his novels: wrestling, bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther starts in the imaginary community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in 14-year-old ward the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a several decades before the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch stays recognisable: already addicted to the drug, respected by his caregivers, beginning every speech with “In this place...” But his role in the book is confined to these early parts.

The couple worry about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will become part of the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist armed group whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would subsequently form the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are enormous topics to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not actually about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s even more disappointing that it’s likewise not focused on the main character. For reasons that must connect to narrative construction, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for one more of the family's children, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this book is his tale.

And here is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both typical and distinct. Jimmy moves to – of course – Vienna; there’s discussion of evading the Vietnam draft through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a canine with a significant name (the animal, remember the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, writers and penises (Irving’s throughout).

He is a less interesting figure than Esther suggested to be, and the supporting figures, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are flat as well. There are some amusing set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of bullies get beaten with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a subtle author, but that is isn't the issue. He has consistently repeated his ideas, telegraphed narrative turns and let them to gather in the viewer's thoughts before bringing them to fruition in lengthy, shocking, amusing moments. For example, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to be lost: recall the speech organ in Garp, the digit in His Owen Book. Those losses reverberate through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a major person is deprived of an upper extremity – but we just discover thirty pages before the conclusion.

The protagonist returns late in the book, but just with a final feeling of concluding. We not once do find out the entire narrative of her experiences in the Middle East. This novel is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such delight. That’s the downside. The upside is that Cider House – upon rereading in parallel to this book – still remains wonderfully, 40 years on. So pick up that instead: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but far as great.