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If certain writers experience an golden phase, in which they achieve the heights repeatedly, then American novelist John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four long, satisfying novels, from his 1978 success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were generous, witty, big-hearted books, connecting figures he refers to as “outsiders” to societal topics from women's rights to termination.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been diminishing returns, save in word count. His previous novel, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had examined more skillfully in earlier works (inability to speak, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a lengthy film script in the heart to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

Thus we approach a latest Irving with care but still a small glimmer of hope, which shines brighter when we learn that Queen Esther – a just four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the world of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is one of Irving’s very best books, located primarily in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

The book is a failure from a novelist who once gave such pleasure

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored pregnancy termination and identity with colour, humor and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a major novel because it abandoned the themes that were evolving into tiresome patterns in his novels: wrestling, ursine creatures, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book opens in the imaginary town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where the Winslow couple welcome young orphan Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a few generations prior to the events of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch stays recognisable: already dependent on the drug, beloved by his staff, beginning every address with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in this novel is restricted to these opening scenes.

The couple are concerned about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a young Jewish girl discover her identity?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will become part of the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist paramilitary force whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would eventually form the foundation of the IDF.

These are massive themes to take on, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s additionally not focused on the titular figure. For causes that must involve story mechanics, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for one more of the Winslows’ daughters, and delivers to a son, James, in World War II era – and the bulk of this novel is his story.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both typical and distinct. Jimmy moves to – naturally – the city; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a dog with a meaningful designation (Hard Rain, recall the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a more mundane persona than the heroine suggested to be, and the minor figures, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are flat too. There are several nice scenes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a handful of ruffians get battered with a crutch and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a nuanced novelist, but that is not the issue. He has consistently reiterated his ideas, hinted at narrative turns and enabled them to accumulate in the viewer's imagination before leading them to resolution in long, jarring, entertaining moments. For example, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to disappear: think of the tongue in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those absences echo through the narrative. In the book, a key person is deprived of an limb – but we just discover 30 pages the finish.

Esther returns late in the book, but just with a eleventh-hour feeling of ending the story. We do not learn the complete narrative of her life in the region. This novel is a failure from a novelist who once gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it in parallel to this novel – yet stands up excellently, 40 years on. So pick up it as an alternative: it’s double the length as the new novel, but far as great.