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If some novelists enjoy an golden period, during which they reach the summit time after time, then American author John Irving’s lasted through a series of four substantial, rewarding novels, from his 1978 breakthrough His Garp Novel to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were rich, funny, compassionate works, linking figures he describes as “outliers” to social issues from feminism to abortion.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, aside from in page length. His previous book, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages of topics Irving had delved into better in earlier novels (mutism, short stature, trans issues), with a lengthy script in the center to fill it out – as if padding were needed.

Therefore we approach a latest Irving with care but still a tiny glimmer of optimism, which glows brighter when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “revisits the universe of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties book is one of Irving’s top-tier novels, taking place primarily in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

This novel is a failure from a novelist who previously gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about abortion and belonging with vibrancy, wit and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a major book because it left behind the topics that were evolving into tiresome patterns in his books: grappling, bears, Austrian capital, the oldest profession.

The novel opens in the made-up community of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple take in young ward Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a several decades ahead of the events of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch stays familiar: even then addicted to ether, adored by his staff, starting every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in the book is restricted to these opening parts.

The family worry about raising Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will become part of the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed organisation whose “purpose was to protect Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently form the core of the IDF.

Those are huge topics to take on, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s likewise not really concerning the main character. For motivations that must connect to plot engineering, Esther ends up as a gestational carrier for a different of the couple's daughters, and bears to a baby boy, the boy, in the early forties – and the majority of this story is Jimmy’s story.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both regular and particular. Jimmy moves to – where else? – the Austrian capital; there’s talk of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a meaningful title (the dog's name, remember the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, writers and penises (Irving’s recurring).

He is a more mundane figure than the heroine hinted to be, and the minor figures, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are one-dimensional also. There are some nice scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of thugs get battered with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a subtle novelist, but that is not the issue. He has consistently restated his ideas, hinted at narrative turns and let them to gather in the audience's thoughts before leading them to resolution in lengthy, jarring, funny scenes. For example, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to be lost: think of the oral part in The Garp Novel, the finger in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the plot. In this novel, a major person suffers the loss of an arm – but we merely discover 30 pages before the conclusion.

Esther comes back late in the story, but just with a eleventh-hour impression of ending the story. We do not discover the complete narrative of her time in the region. This novel is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – I reread it together with this work – even now remains wonderfully, after forty years. So read that as an alternative: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but 12 times as great.