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If a few writers enjoy an golden period, in which they reach the summit consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s ran through a series of several fat, rewarding books, from his 1978 breakthrough Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Such were rich, humorous, compassionate works, tying figures he refers to as “outsiders” to societal topics from feminism to termination.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing returns, except in size. His previous work, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages in length of themes Irving had explored more effectively in prior books (selective mutism, restricted growth, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the center to extend it – as if padding were needed.

Therefore we come to a recent Irving with caution but still a small flame of optimism, which shines stronger when we learn that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is one of Irving’s finest novels, located largely in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer.

This novel is a failure from a writer who once gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and acceptance with colour, wit and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a significant novel because it moved past the subjects that were evolving into annoying patterns in his books: grappling, wild bears, Vienna, sex work.

This book opens in the fictional community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome 14-year-old foundling the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a a number of years ahead of the action of Cider House, yet Dr Larch stays familiar: still using the drug, beloved by his nurses, starting every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in Queen Esther is limited to these opening scenes.

The Winslows fret about raising Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a adolescent Jewish girl find herself?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will enter the Haganah, the Zionist militant force whose “goal was to protect Jewish towns from opposition” and which would later establish the foundation of the Israel's military.

Such are enormous topics to address, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is hardly about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s also not really concerning the titular figure. For causes that must relate to story mechanics, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for a different of the Winslows’ offspring, and gives birth to a male child, the boy, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this story is Jimmy’s story.

And at this point is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both common and distinct. Jimmy moves to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of avoiding the draft notice through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a dog with a meaningful designation (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

Jimmy is a duller character than the heroine promised to be, and the minor figures, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are several amusing set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a handful of bullies get assaulted with a support and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a delicate novelist, but that is isn't the problem. He has consistently repeated his arguments, telegraphed narrative turns and enabled them to gather in the audience's mind before taking them to completion in extended, shocking, funny sequences. For case, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to be lost: recall the tongue in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the plot. In the book, a major person is deprived of an arm – but we just discover 30 pages the conclusion.

She reappears toward the end in the book, but just with a final sense of wrapping things up. We not once discover the full account of her life in the region. The book is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading together with this book – still stands up beautifully, after forty years. So pick up it instead: it’s double the length as the new novel, but far as good.