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If certain authors enjoy an imperial phase, during which they achieve the pinnacle consistently, then American author John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of four long, rewarding works, from his late-seventies breakthrough The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. These were expansive, humorous, compassionate books, connecting protagonists he describes as “outliers” to societal topics from women's rights to abortion.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing outcomes, save in page length. His previous work, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages in length of themes Irving had delved into more effectively in previous books (selective mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a lengthy screenplay in the heart to extend it – as if filler were required.

Therefore we look at a recent Irving with caution but still a faint glimmer of hope, which burns brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a just four hundred thirty-two pages long – “returns to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is one of Irving’s top-tier works, set largely in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

The book is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving wrote about termination and belonging with colour, humor and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a important work because it abandoned the subjects that were becoming annoying habits in his works: wrestling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

The novel starts in the imaginary village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple welcome teenage foundling the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a several years before the storyline of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch stays recognisable: even then dependent on anesthetic, adored by his staff, beginning every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in this novel is restricted to these opening scenes.

The Winslows fret about parenting Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To answer that, we flash 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 paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would later establish the foundation of the IDF.

Those are massive themes to take on, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not really about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s likewise not really concerning the main character. For reasons that must relate to plot engineering, Esther becomes a substitute parent for a different of the Winslows’ children, and delivers to a baby boy, the boy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this story is his tale.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both regular and specific. Jimmy moves to – where else? – Vienna; there’s talk of evading the draft notice through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a dog with a meaningful title (the animal, meet the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a less interesting figure than the heroine suggested to be, and the secondary characters, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor Eissler, are flat also. There are several amusing set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a handful of bullies get battered with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle author, but that is is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly repeated his arguments, hinted at story twists and let them to accumulate in the audience's imagination before leading them to completion in long, shocking, funny moments. For case, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to go missing: recall the oral part in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces echo through the story. In the book, a central figure suffers the loss of an arm – but we just discover 30 pages before the finish.

Esther reappears in the final part in the novel, but merely with a last-minute sense of wrapping things up. We never learn the complete account of her time in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a failure from a author who previously gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that Cider House – upon rereading together with this novel – even now stands up wonderfully, 40 years on. So read the earlier work as an alternative: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but 12 times as good.