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If some writers experience an peak period, in which they hit the summit repeatedly, then American author John Irving’s extended through a series of four substantial, rewarding novels, from his late-seventies hit Garp to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were rich, witty, warm novels, tying figures he refers to as “misfits” to social issues from gender equality to termination.

After Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, except in size. His previous book, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages in length of topics Irving had delved into better in prior works (inability to speak, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a lengthy screenplay in the center to pad it out – as if filler were necessary.

Thus we look at a new Irving with caution but still a tiny spark of optimism, which shines stronger when we learn that His Queen Esther Novel – a only 432 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 orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his apprentice Homer.

The book is a disappointment from a writer who once gave such joy

In Cider House, Irving wrote about abortion and acceptance with vibrancy, humor and an all-encompassing understanding. And it was a major work because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into repetitive tics in his works: grappling, wild bears, Vienna, prostitution.

The novel opens in the fictional village of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple welcome young foundling the title character from the orphanage. We are a a number of generations before the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch stays identifiable: still using anesthetic, beloved by his nurses, beginning every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his role in this novel is limited to these early sections.

The couple are concerned about bringing up Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how might they help a teenage Jewish girl understand her place?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the area, where she will enter Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary force whose “purpose was to defend Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would eventually form the basis of the IDF.

Those are massive topics to take on, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is hardly about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s additionally not focused on the titular figure. For motivations that must involve narrative construction, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for one more of the couple's children, and delivers to a son, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the bulk of this novel is Jimmy’s story.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both common and distinct. Jimmy goes to – of course – the city; there’s mention of avoiding the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a canine with a significant name (the animal, remember the canine from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

Jimmy is a more mundane character than the heroine hinted to be, and the supporting players, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are one-dimensional as well. There are some enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a couple of bullies get assaulted with a walking aid and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a nuanced author, but that is is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly repeated his arguments, foreshadowed plot developments and let them to build up in the audience's thoughts before bringing them to completion in extended, shocking, amusing scenes. For example, in Irving’s works, anatomical features tend to go missing: recall the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the story. In the book, a major person is deprived of an arm – but we merely learn 30 pages the finish.

The protagonist comes back in the final part in the book, but merely with a last-minute feeling of wrapping things up. We do not do find out the entire narrative of her life in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a failure from a author who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – I reread it alongside this work – even now remains excellently, after forty years. So choose that in its place: it’s much longer as this book, but far as great.