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If some novelists experience an golden period, during which they hit the pinnacle consistently, then American novelist John Irving’s extended through a sequence of several long, rewarding novels, from his late-seventies hit The World According to Garp to 1989’s Owen Meany. Such were rich, witty, warm works, linking protagonists he describes as “outliers” to cultural themes from women's rights to reproductive rights.

After Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, aside from in page length. His previous book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages of topics Irving had delved into more effectively in earlier books (selective mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a 200-page script in the heart to extend it – as if filler were necessary.

Therefore we approach a new Irving with care but still a faint flame of optimism, which burns brighter when we find out that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “returns to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is one of Irving’s very best works, set primarily in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

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

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored abortion and belonging with colour, comedy and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a significant book because it abandoned the subjects that were turning into tiresome tics in his novels: grappling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

This book begins in the fictional town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple adopt 14-year-old orphan the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a several decades before the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch is still identifiable: already using anesthetic, adored by his nurses, starting every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in this novel is confined to these opening scenes.

The Winslows fret about parenting Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a young girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Zionist militant group whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would eventually become the core of the Israel's military.

Such are huge subjects to take on, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s frustrating that Queen Esther is not really about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s still more disheartening that it’s likewise not about Esther. For motivations that must involve plot engineering, Esther ends up as a gestational carrier for another of the family's children, and bears to a male child, James, in the early forties – and the bulk of this book is Jimmy’s story.

And at this point is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both common and specific. Jimmy relocates to – of course – the city; there’s mention of avoiding the draft notice through self-harm (His Earlier Book); a pet with a symbolic designation (Hard Rain, recall Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, writers and male anatomy (Irving’s throughout).

He is a more mundane character than the female lead hinted to be, and the minor characters, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher Annelies Eissler, are flat as well. There are a few enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a handful of ruffians get beaten with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a delicate novelist, but that is is not the difficulty. He has always reiterated his arguments, telegraphed story twists and allowed them to accumulate in the audience's imagination before taking them to resolution in lengthy, jarring, amusing scenes. For case, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to be lost: remember the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences resonate through the plot. In this novel, a key person suffers the loss of an upper extremity – but we only discover 30 pages the finish.

Esther comes back in the final part in the novel, but just with a last-minute impression of wrapping things up. We not once do find out the complete story of her time in Palestine and Israel. The book is a failure from a novelist who once gave such delight. That’s the downside. The upside is that Cider House – I reread it in parallel to this book – yet remains excellently, after forty years. So choose it instead: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but far as great.