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If some novelists experience an imperial period, in which they reach the summit repeatedly, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s lasted through a run of several substantial, gratifying works, from his 1978 hit The World According to Garp to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were generous, witty, warm works, connecting protagonists he describes as “outliers” to cultural themes from gender equality to termination.

Following His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning outcomes, except in size. His last work, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages long of topics Irving had delved into more effectively in previous works (inability to speak, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a 200-page film script in the heart to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

Therefore we look at a new Irving with care but still a small spark of hope, which glows stronger when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages – “revisits the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is part of Irving’s very best books, located mostly in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

This novel is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such pleasure

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed pregnancy termination and acceptance with colour, comedy and an all-encompassing understanding. And it was a important work because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into annoying tics in his novels: wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

This book opens in the fictional community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in 14-year-old orphan the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a a number of decades ahead of the action of Cider House, yet Dr Larch remains familiar: still using ether, adored by his staff, starting every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in this novel is restricted to these opening scenes.

The Winslows are concerned about bringing up Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a adolescent Jewish girl find herself?” To address that, we move 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 Jewish nationalist armed group whose “goal was to defend Jewish communities from opposition” and which would later form the core of the Israel's military.

Those are massive subjects to address, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not actually about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s even more upsetting that it’s likewise not about the titular figure. For motivations that must relate to narrative construction, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for a different of the family's children, and gives birth to a baby boy, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this book is his tale.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both regular and particular. Jimmy relocates to – naturally – Vienna; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through self-harm (Owen Meany); a pet with a significant title (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

Jimmy is a less interesting figure than Esther promised to be, and the supporting players, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are flat too. There are some enjoyable episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a fight where a couple of ruffians get assaulted with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a nuanced writer, but that is not the difficulty. He has repeatedly reiterated his ideas, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to gather in the viewer's mind before leading them to resolution in long, shocking, entertaining sequences. For case, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to disappear: think of the oral part in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those losses reverberate through the story. In the book, a major character suffers the loss of an limb – but we merely learn 30 pages later the end.

The protagonist comes back late in the story, but merely with a last-minute sense of wrapping things up. We never discover the entire narrative of her experiences in the Middle East. This novel is a disappointment from a author who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The upside is that Cider House – upon rereading in parallel to this novel – still holds up wonderfully, 40 years on. So read it as an alternative: it’s much longer as the new novel, but 12 times as good.