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If some authors enjoy an golden era, where they reach the summit time after time, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a sequence of several fat, gratifying works, from his late-seventies hit His Garp Novel to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. These were rich, funny, warm novels, connecting characters he describes as “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to termination.

After His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing returns, save in page length. His last novel, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages long of themes Irving had delved into more effectively in previous novels (selective mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a lengthy film script in the heart to extend it – as if filler were required.

Therefore we look at a recent Irving with reservation but still a tiny glimmer of hope, which glows brighter when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a just four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “revisits the world of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is among Irving’s top-tier novels, taking place primarily in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Wells.

The book is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such joy

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about abortion and acceptance with richness, wit and an total compassion. And it was a important novel because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into repetitive tics in his novels: wrestling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

This book starts in the fictional town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt teenage ward Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a a number of years before the events of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch is still identifiable: still using the drug, adored by his nurses, starting every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in Queen Esther is restricted to these opening sections.

The Winslows are concerned about parenting Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will join the Haganah, the Zionist armed organisation whose “purpose was to protect Jewish communities from opposition” and which would subsequently form the foundation of the IDF.

Such are massive themes 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 even more upsetting that it’s additionally not really concerning Esther. For motivations that must connect to plot engineering, Esther ends up as a substitute parent for one more of the Winslows’ offspring, and bears to a baby boy, the boy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this novel is his narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both regular and distinct. Jimmy moves to – naturally – the city; there’s mention of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a symbolic title (the animal, remember the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, novelists and penises (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a duller character than the female lead promised to be, and the secondary figures, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are some enjoyable scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of ruffians get assaulted with a support and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle writer, but that is is not the issue. He has always restated his arguments, telegraphed story twists and enabled them to build up in the reader’s imagination before leading them to completion in long, shocking, amusing moments. For case, in Irving’s works, anatomical features tend to disappear: think of the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the finger in Owen Meany. Those losses resonate through the plot. In the book, a key figure loses an arm – but we merely discover thirty pages the conclusion.

She comes back toward the end in the story, but just with a final impression of ending the story. We do not discover the entire account of her experiences in the region. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who previously gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that His Classic Novel – I reread it alongside this work – yet remains excellently, 40 years on. So read it instead: it’s much longer as this book, but 12 times as good.