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If certain novelists enjoy an golden period, in which they hit the heights consistently, then American writer John Irving’s extended through a sequence of four fat, rewarding works, from his late-seventies breakthrough His Garp Novel to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were rich, witty, big-hearted novels, connecting characters he refers to as “outliers” to social issues from gender equality to reproductive rights.

After Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing returns, except in size. His most recent work, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had delved into better in earlier novels (mutism, short stature, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page film script in the center to pad it out – as if filler were necessary.

Thus we look at a recent Irving with care but still a tiny glimmer of expectation, which shines hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages long – “goes back to the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is one of Irving’s very best works, located primarily in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a writer who once gave such joy

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored pregnancy termination and belonging with colour, comedy and an total understanding. And it was a major book because it abandoned the topics that were evolving into annoying habits in his novels: grappling, wild bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

Queen Esther starts in the made-up village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple take in young ward the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a several years ahead of the events of His Earlier Novel, yet Dr Larch stays recognisable: even then dependent on anesthetic, respected by his caregivers, opening every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in Queen Esther is confined to these initial scenes.

The Winslows fret about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a teenage Jewish girl understand her place?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will join the Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant force whose “purpose was to defend Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would eventually establish the foundation of the Israel's military.

Those are massive subjects to take on, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not actually about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s even more disappointing that it’s likewise not really concerning the titular figure. For reasons that must connect to narrative construction, Esther turns into a substitute parent for another of the Winslows’ children, and gives birth to a male child, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this book is the boy's story.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both regular and particular. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a symbolic name (the animal, remember the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

He is a less interesting persona than the female lead promised to be, and the minor characters, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are underdeveloped too. There are a few nice episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a confrontation where a few ruffians get assaulted with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has never been a subtle novelist, but that is not the problem. He has consistently restated his arguments, telegraphed plot developments and let them to gather in the viewer's mind before taking them to fruition in extended, jarring, funny scenes. For instance, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to disappear: remember the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the story. In the book, a central person loses an limb – but we merely find out 30 pages later the end.

Esther returns in the final part in the novel, but merely with a last-minute feeling of concluding. We never learn the entire story of her life in the region. This novel is a letdown from a writer who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it together with this novel – still stands up excellently, four decades later. So read it as an alternative: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as enjoyable.