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If some writers have an peak period, in which they reach the pinnacle repeatedly, then American writer John Irving’s extended through a run of several fat, satisfying books, from his late-seventies breakthrough The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were generous, funny, warm books, linking protagonists he describes as “misfits” to societal topics from women's rights to abortion.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, aside from in size. His most recent novel, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages long of themes Irving had explored better in prior works (inability to speak, restricted growth, trans issues), with a 200-page screenplay in the middle to pad it out – as if extra material were required.

Thus we look at a recent Irving with caution but still a tiny glimmer of hope, which burns stronger when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is part of Irving’s very best works, taking place largely in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

This novel is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such delight

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed abortion and identity with richness, humor and an total empathy. And it was a important book because it left behind the topics that were becoming tiresome habits in his novels: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, Vienna, sex work.

This book begins in the imaginary community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple take in teenage ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a few decades prior to the events of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch is still familiar: still using anesthetic, beloved by his staff, beginning every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in this novel is confined to these early sections.

The family fret about raising Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will join the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “goal was to defend Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would later establish the foundation of the Israel's military.

Such are huge topics to take on, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that Queen Esther is hardly about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s additionally not about the titular figure. For reasons that must relate to plot engineering, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for a different of the Winslows’ daughters, and bears to a son, James, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this book is Jimmy’s story.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – Vienna; there’s discussion of avoiding the draft notice through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a dog with a significant name (Hard Rain, recall the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, prostitutes, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

The character is a less interesting persona than Esther hinted to be, and the secondary players, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are underdeveloped as well. There are some amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a fight where a couple of ruffians get beaten with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a subtle author, but that is isn't the problem. He has always reiterated his points, foreshadowed narrative turns and allowed them to gather in the reader’s imagination before leading them to resolution in long, surprising, funny moments. For instance, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to go missing: think of the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences echo through the story. In the book, a key figure is deprived of an upper extremity – but we only discover 30 pages later the conclusion.

Esther comes back in the final part in the book, but only with a last-minute sense of ending the story. We not once learn the full story of her life in the Middle East. This novel is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such delight. That’s the downside. The good news is that Cider House – upon rereading in parallel to this novel – still holds up beautifully, 40 years on. So pick up that as an alternative: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as enjoyable.