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If a few authors have an imperial phase, in which they reach the pinnacle consistently, then American novelist John Irving’s ran through a run of several long, gratifying books, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Such were generous, funny, warm novels, linking figures he describes as “misfits” to social issues from feminism to termination.

After A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing outcomes, save in size. His most recent novel, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages long of themes Irving had delved into better in earlier works (selective mutism, short stature, transgenderism), with a 200-page film script in the middle to fill it out – as if padding were needed.

So we come to a latest Irving with caution but still a faint flame of expectation, which glows stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages – “goes back to the world of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is among Irving’s very best works, located mostly in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a writer who in the past gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored pregnancy termination and acceptance with vibrancy, wit and an total empathy. And it was a major novel because it left behind the themes that were evolving into repetitive tics in his works: grappling, bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

Queen Esther starts in the made-up village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt teenage foundling the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a several years ahead of the action of Cider House, yet the doctor stays identifiable: even then using anesthetic, adored by his nurses, starting every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in the book is limited to these initial parts.

The couple worry about raising Esther correctly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a adolescent Jewish female find herself?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will join the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently establish the basis of the Israel's military.

Those are huge topics to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not really about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s likewise not about the titular figure. For motivations that must connect to story mechanics, Esther turns into a substitute parent for a different of the family's offspring, and delivers to a baby boy, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this story is Jimmy’s story.

And at this point is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both typical and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – the city; there’s mention of evading the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic title (the animal, meet Sorrow from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, sex workers, authors and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

The character is a more mundane figure than the heroine promised to be, and the minor players, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are a few enjoyable scenes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of bullies get beaten with a support and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a subtle writer, but that is isn't the problem. He has repeatedly restated his ideas, hinted at plot developments and let them to gather in the reader’s mind before taking them to fruition in long, jarring, funny sequences. For example, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to go missing: think of the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the story. In this novel, a major figure loses an limb – but we merely find out thirty pages the finish.

Esther comes back late in the book, but just with a final impression of ending the story. We never discover the full narrative of her life in the Middle East. The book is a disappointment from a novelist who once gave such pleasure. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading alongside this book – still remains excellently, after forty years. So choose that in its place: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but a dozen times as great.