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If some writers have an golden period, where they achieve the pinnacle consistently, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a sequence of several long, rewarding works, from his 1978 hit Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. These were rich, funny, warm books, linking figures he calls “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to abortion.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing returns, save in word count. His last novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of themes Irving had explored better in prior books (inability to speak, dwarfism, trans issues), with a lengthy script in the heart to pad it out – as if padding were needed.

Thus we look at a new Irving with caution but still a tiny glimmer of optimism, which glows hotter when we find out that Queen Esther – a just four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is part of Irving’s finest books, taking place largely in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his assistant Wells.

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

In Cider House, Irving wrote about abortion and identity with richness, humor and an total compassion. And it was a significant work because it abandoned the topics that were becoming repetitive patterns in his works: grappling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther opens in the made-up community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple adopt young foundling Esther from the orphanage. We are a several years before the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch remains familiar: already dependent on anesthetic, beloved by his caregivers, beginning every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in the book is restricted to these initial parts.

The Winslows are concerned about raising Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a teenage Jewish female discover her identity?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will become part of Haganah, the Jewish nationalist militant group whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would later form the foundation of the IDF.

These are massive themes to take on, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s disappointing that this book is not actually about St Cloud’s and Wilbur Larch, it’s even more disappointing that it’s additionally not about the titular figure. For causes that must involve plot engineering, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for another of the Winslows’ offspring, and gives birth to a son, James, in the early forties – and the bulk of this novel is his story.

And here is where Irving’s fixations return strongly, both regular and distinct. Jimmy moves to – where else? – Vienna; there’s discussion of avoiding the military conscription through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a pet with a significant designation (Hard Rain, recall the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, novelists and male anatomy (Irving’s passim).

The character is a less interesting figure than Esther promised to be, and the supporting players, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are some amusing scenes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a fight where a handful of ruffians get battered with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle novelist, but that is is not the problem. He has always restated his points, telegraphed story twists and enabled them to gather in the reader’s imagination before taking them to resolution in lengthy, jarring, entertaining moments. For example, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to go missing: recall the oral part in The Garp Novel, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the narrative. In this novel, a major person loses an limb – but we just discover thirty pages the end.

Esther reappears toward the end in the story, but only with a final sense of wrapping things up. We do not learn the full story of her time in Palestine and Israel. The book is a failure from a author who previously gave such delight. That’s the downside. The upside is that His Classic Novel – I reread it in parallel to this novel – yet holds up beautifully, after forty years. So choose the earlier work as an alternative: it’s much longer as this book, but far as great.