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If certain authors experience an peak phase, in which they achieve the pinnacle repeatedly, then American novelist John Irving’s ran through a run of four long, gratifying books, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. These were rich, humorous, big-hearted novels, linking protagonists he calls “outliers” to social issues from gender equality to abortion.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning results, save in page length. His most recent novel, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages in length of subjects Irving had examined better in earlier works (mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a 200-page script in the middle to extend it – as if padding were needed.

Thus we look at a latest Irving with caution but still a small flame of hope, which shines stronger when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages long – “goes back to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is part of Irving’s finest works, located mostly in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

This novel is a disappointment from a writer who once gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored pregnancy termination and acceptance with colour, wit and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a significant work because it moved past the subjects that were turning into annoying tics in his novels: the sport of wrestling, ursine creatures, Vienna, prostitution.

The novel opens in the fictional town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt teenage ward the title character from the orphanage. We are a several decades ahead of the events of Cider House, yet Dr Larch remains identifiable: even then using the drug, respected by his caregivers, beginning every speech with “In this place...” But his presence in the book is restricted to these opening scenes.

The Winslows are concerned about parenting Esther well: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a young girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will enter the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed organisation whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would subsequently establish the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are enormous themes to take on, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is hardly about St Cloud’s and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s also not about the main character. For motivations that must connect to narrative construction, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for a different of the family's offspring, and bears to a baby boy, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this novel is his narrative.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both typical and distinct. Jimmy goes to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic name (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a more mundane character than the heroine hinted to be, and the supporting players, such as students the two students, and Jimmy’s teacher Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are some amusing episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a handful of bullies get assaulted with a support and a air pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a delicate novelist, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has consistently repeated his ideas, hinted at story twists and let them to accumulate in the viewer's mind before leading them to resolution in long, surprising, amusing scenes. For instance, in Irving’s works, anatomical features tend to go missing: think of the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the digit in Owen Meany. Those absences reverberate through the story. In Queen Esther, a central figure is deprived of an upper extremity – but we merely discover thirty pages later the finish.

She comes back late in the novel, but just with a final feeling of concluding. We not once discover the complete narrative of her experiences in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a disappointment from a writer who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the downside. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading in parallel to this book – yet remains beautifully, after forty years. So pick up the earlier work instead: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but far as great.