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If certain novelists enjoy an peak phase, where they achieve the heights consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s extended through a series of several fat, rewarding books, from his late-seventies hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. These were expansive, witty, compassionate novels, tying figures he refers to as “outliers” to social issues from gender equality to termination.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, except in page length. His previous work, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages long of topics Irving had examined more skillfully in prior novels (mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a 200-page screenplay in the center to pad it out – as if padding were needed.

Thus we come to a new Irving with reservation but still a small flame of optimism, which shines brighter when we find out that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages in length – “goes back to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is one of Irving’s finest books, located primarily in an children's home in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

The book is a failure from a author who once gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and identity with vibrancy, humor and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a important novel because it abandoned the themes that were becoming repetitive habits in his books: grappling, wild bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

This book opens in the made-up community of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple adopt 14-year-old orphan the title character from the orphanage. We are a several decades prior to the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor is still familiar: already dependent on anesthetic, beloved by his caregivers, starting every speech with “In this place...” But his role in this novel is confined to these opening parts.

The couple worry about raising Esther well: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a young Jewish female find herself?” To answer that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the Zionist armed group whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently form the core of the Israel's military.

These are enormous themes to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not really about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s likewise not really concerning Esther. For reasons that must relate to narrative construction, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for a different of the family's children, and gives birth to a baby boy, James, in the early forties – and the bulk of this book is his tale.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both regular and particular. Jimmy moves to – where else? – the city; there’s talk of avoiding the Vietnam draft through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a significant designation (the animal, meet the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, prostitutes, authors and penises (Irving’s throughout).

He is a less interesting persona than Esther suggested to be, and the secondary figures, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are one-dimensional also. There are a few nice episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a fight where a couple of thugs get beaten with a walking aid 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 repeated his arguments, foreshadowed narrative turns and enabled them to build up in the audience's mind before bringing them to fruition in long, shocking, amusing sequences. For example, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to go missing: recall the tongue in Garp, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those absences reverberate through the narrative. In this novel, a central person suffers the loss of an limb – but we just discover 30 pages later the finish.

Esther returns in the final part in the story, but only with a final feeling of ending the story. We do not learn the full account of her life in the Middle East. The book is a letdown from a writer who in the past gave such delight. That’s the downside. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading together with this novel – yet holds up wonderfully, after forty years. So choose the earlier work in its place: it’s double the length as the new novel, but far as good.