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If some novelists have an imperial phase, where they reach the summit repeatedly, then American novelist John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four long, gratifying books, from his 1978 breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were generous, humorous, compassionate novels, linking figures he refers to as “outsiders” to cultural themes from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, save in size. His last work, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages long of subjects Irving had delved into better in previous works (selective mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a 200-page film script in the center to fill it out – as if padding were needed.

Thus we approach a recent Irving with care but still a small spark of optimism, which burns brighter when we discover that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages long – “revisits the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is one of Irving’s top-tier works, taking place mostly in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Larch and his protege Homer.

Queen Esther is a failure from a writer who once gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about abortion and acceptance with colour, humor and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a important book because it abandoned the themes that were turning into annoying habits in his books: wrestling, ursine creatures, Austrian capital, sex work.

This book starts in the fictional village of the Penacook area in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in young foundling the protagonist from St Cloud’s. We are a several years ahead of the action of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch stays identifiable: even then using the drug, adored by his caregivers, beginning every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in the book is limited to these opening scenes.

The couple fret about parenting Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a young Jewish female discover her identity?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will become part of Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary force whose “mission was to defend Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently become the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are huge themes to tackle, but having presented them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is hardly about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s additionally not really concerning Esther. For causes that must involve plot engineering, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for a different of the couple's daughters, and bears to a baby boy, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this story is the boy's story.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both typical and distinct. Jimmy moves to – of course – Vienna; there’s mention of avoiding the military conscription through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a pet with a symbolic designation (Hard Rain, meet Sorrow from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, sex workers, authors and penises (Irving’s throughout).

He is a more mundane figure than the heroine promised to be, and the supporting figures, such as pupils the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are underdeveloped too. There are some nice set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a brawl where a couple of ruffians get assaulted with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a subtle author, but that is isn't the issue. He has consistently reiterated his ideas, telegraphed story twists and allowed them to accumulate in the audience's imagination before taking them to fruition in extended, shocking, amusing moments. For instance, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to be lost: recall the oral part in Garp, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those missing pieces resonate through the plot. In this novel, a key character suffers the loss of an limb – but we merely learn 30 pages later the end.

She comes back in the final part in the story, but just with a final sense of concluding. We not once discover the full account of her time in the region. This novel is a failure from a writer who in the past gave such joy. That’s the downside. The positive note is that Cider House – revisiting it together with this work – yet stands up beautifully, four decades later. So choose it instead: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but 12 times as enjoyable.