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If a few writers have an imperial period, where they achieve the pinnacle consistently, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a run of several long, gratifying novels, from his 1978 success His Garp Novel to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were rich, funny, big-hearted works, linking characters he calls “outliers” to social issues from feminism to reproductive rights.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing returns, except in word count. His previous book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages in length of subjects Irving had explored more effectively in previous novels (selective mutism, short stature, transgenderism), with a 200-page screenplay in the middle to extend it – as if filler were required.

Thus we look at a new Irving with reservation but still a faint flame of hope, which glows brighter when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a just four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is part of Irving’s very best books, located largely in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

This novel is a disappointment from a novelist who previously gave such pleasure

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed termination and acceptance with vibrancy, wit and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a major work because it moved past the themes that were evolving into tiresome tics in his works: the sport of wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

Queen Esther begins in the fictional town of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome 14-year-old orphan the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a several decades prior to the action of The Cider House Rules, yet Dr Larch is still familiar: still dependent on anesthetic, respected by his nurses, opening every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in Queen Esther is confined to these opening parts.

The Winslows fret about parenting Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a adolescent Jewish girl find herself?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will join the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary group whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish towns from opposition” and which would subsequently form the foundation of the Israel's military.

Such are enormous themes to address, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is not really about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s additionally not about Esther. For causes that must connect to story mechanics, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for a different of the couple's offspring, and gives birth to a male child, the boy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this novel is Jimmy’s story.

And here is where Irving’s fixations return strongly, both regular and specific. Jimmy moves to – where else? – the city; there’s discussion of avoiding the draft notice through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a meaningful name (Hard Rain, recall Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, sex workers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

Jimmy is a duller figure than the heroine promised to be, and the secondary characters, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are flat too. There are a few enjoyable scenes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a confrontation where a few thugs get assaulted with a support and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a nuanced author, but that is not the problem. He has always restated his ideas, foreshadowed narrative turns and let them to build up in the audience's mind before bringing them to completion in lengthy, jarring, entertaining sequences. For instance, in Irving’s works, anatomical features tend to be lost: think of the speech organ in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the story. In the book, a central person suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we just find out thirty pages the finish.

She comes back in the final part in the book, but only with a final sense of wrapping things up. We never discover the full narrative of her experiences in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading alongside this work – still remains wonderfully, 40 years on. So choose the earlier work as an alternative: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but a dozen times as enjoyable.