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If certain novelists have an imperial period, during which they hit the pinnacle consistently, then U.S. writer John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four long, satisfying works, from his late-seventies success The World According to Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were rich, humorous, big-hearted novels, tying figures he describes as “outsiders” to social issues from gender equality to abortion.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been waning outcomes, aside from in page length. His most recent book, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of topics Irving had explored better in earlier books (inability to speak, short stature, gender identity), with a lengthy screenplay in the center to fill it out – as if padding were necessary.

Therefore we come to a new Irving with reservation but still a tiny spark of expectation, which shines hotter when we discover that His Queen Esther Novel – a just four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “goes back to the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties work is one of Irving’s very best books, taking place primarily in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

This novel is a letdown from a novelist who in the past gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored pregnancy termination and identity with richness, comedy and an total compassion. And it was a important work because it left behind the themes that were turning into annoying tics in his works: the sport of wrestling, wild bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

This book starts in the imaginary village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome teenage orphan the title character from St Cloud’s. We are a several generations prior to the storyline of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch stays identifiable: even then addicted to ether, adored by his staff, beginning every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in this novel is limited to these initial sections.

The couple are concerned about raising Esther properly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To answer that, we move forward to Esther’s adulthood in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will enter Haganah, the Jewish nationalist militant group whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would later establish the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are massive themes to take on, but having presented them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is hardly about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s still more upsetting that it’s additionally not really concerning the main character. For causes that must involve narrative construction, Esther becomes a substitute parent for a different of the family's children, and gives birth to a baby boy, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the majority of this novel is his tale.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both common and particular. Jimmy moves to – naturally – Vienna; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a significant designation (the dog's name, meet the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, prostitutes, authors and penises (Irving’s passim).

The character is a more mundane character than the female lead hinted to be, and the supporting players, such as students the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are some nice episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a confrontation where a few bullies get assaulted with a walking aid and a tire pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a nuanced author, but that is is not the problem. He has always reiterated his arguments, foreshadowed narrative turns and allowed them to accumulate in the reader’s mind before leading them to fruition in long, shocking, entertaining scenes. For case, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to go missing: recall the oral part in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the plot. In the book, a central figure is deprived of an arm – but we just learn thirty pages before the finish.

Esther comes back in the final part in the novel, but only with a last-minute feeling of ending the story. We do not discover the complete narrative of her life in the Middle East. This novel is a disappointment from a writer who in the past gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The upside is that His Classic Novel – upon rereading in parallel to this book – still stands up beautifully, four decades later. So read that instead: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but far as great.