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If a few novelists enjoy an peak phase, during which they reach the pinnacle time after time, then American author John Irving’s lasted through a series of several long, satisfying books, from his 1978 hit Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. These were expansive, witty, compassionate works, tying characters he describes as “misfits” to cultural themes from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining outcomes, aside from in word count. His previous novel, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages of subjects Irving had delved into more skillfully in prior books (mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a lengthy script in the heart to fill it out – as if extra material were necessary.

So we look at a recent Irving with caution but still a small spark of expectation, which burns hotter when we learn that His Queen Esther Novel – a just four hundred thirty-two pages long – “returns to the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 work is among Irving’s finest works, located primarily in an orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

This novel is a letdown from a author who previously gave such pleasure

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed termination and identity with richness, humor and an total compassion. And it was a significant book because it left behind the topics that were evolving into annoying tics in his novels: the sport of wrestling, ursine creatures, Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther begins in the imaginary town of the Penacook area in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in 14-year-old ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a a number of decades before the storyline of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays recognisable: already dependent on anesthetic, beloved by his staff, opening every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in this novel is limited to these opening parts.

The family fret about bringing up Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a teenage Jewish girl discover her identity?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Zionist armed force whose “goal was to protect Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently establish the core of the Israel's military.

Those are enormous subjects to take on, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not really about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s even more disappointing that it’s likewise not focused on the titular figure. For causes that must involve narrative construction, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for a different of the family's children, and bears to a male child, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this book is his narrative.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – Vienna; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a pet with a significant name (the animal, meet Sorrow from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, prostitutes, authors and penises (Irving’s passim).

The character is a more mundane persona than the female lead promised to be, and the supporting figures, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are underdeveloped also. There are several amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a fight where a handful of thugs get assaulted with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a subtle novelist, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has repeatedly restated his arguments, hinted at story twists and let them to accumulate in the reader’s mind before bringing them to completion in extended, shocking, amusing scenes. For example, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to go missing: think of the oral part in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the narrative. In this novel, a major figure suffers the loss of an arm – but we merely discover thirty pages later the end.

She comes back toward the end in the book, but only with a final sense of ending the story. We do not discover the full account of her experiences in the Middle East. This novel is a failure from a writer who previously gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Cider House – I reread it together with this novel – yet holds up wonderfully, 40 years on. So pick up the earlier work in its place: it’s much longer as this book, but 12 times as good.