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If certain writers experience an peak phase, during which they reach the pinnacle time after time, then U.S. author John Irving’s ran through a sequence of several long, satisfying books, from his late-seventies success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. These were expansive, humorous, compassionate books, connecting characters he calls “outsiders” to cultural themes from gender equality to abortion.

After His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining returns, aside from in word count. His previous book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages of subjects Irving had examined more skillfully in prior novels (mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a 200-page screenplay in the center to extend it – as if extra material were required.

So we come to a recent Irving with reservation but still a small flame of expectation, which glows hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages long – “goes back to the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is among Irving’s finest books, located mostly in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

The book is a failure from a author who previously gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored termination and belonging with richness, wit and an total understanding. And it was a significant novel because it moved past the subjects that were becoming tiresome tics in his books: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, sex work.

The novel starts in the fictional town of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in teenage ward the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few decades before the action of Cider House, yet Dr Larch stays familiar: still addicted to ether, beloved by his caregivers, opening every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in the book is confined to these opening sections.

The Winslows fret about bringing up Esther well: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a young Jewish girl find herself?” To answer that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will enter the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed organisation whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently establish the core of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are huge subjects to address, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not actually about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s likewise not about the titular figure. For reasons that must involve plot engineering, Esther becomes a gestational carrier for a different of the family's children, and gives birth to a baby boy, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this story is his story.

And now is where Irving’s fixations return strongly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy moves to – of course – Vienna; there’s discussion of dodging the military conscription through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a canine with a symbolic name (the animal, recall the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, writers and penises (Irving’s passim).

He is a more mundane figure than Esther promised to be, and the secondary figures, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are one-dimensional as well. There are a few enjoyable episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a fight where a couple of bullies get beaten with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a nuanced novelist, but that is is not the issue. He has repeatedly repeated his arguments, foreshadowed story twists and let them to accumulate in the reader’s mind before bringing them to fruition in lengthy, shocking, funny scenes. For instance, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to be lost: remember the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces echo through the narrative. In Queen Esther, a central character suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we only learn 30 pages before the end.

Esther returns late in the book, but merely with a final impression of ending the story. We not once discover the full story of her time in Palestine and Israel. This novel is a disappointment from a writer who once gave such joy. That’s the downside. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading alongside this book – even now stands up wonderfully, after forty years. So choose that in its place: it’s much longer as this book, but far as enjoyable.