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If certain novelists experience an imperial phase, in which they reach the heights time after time, then U.S. author John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of four fat, gratifying works, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were generous, witty, warm books, connecting figures he describes as “outsiders” to cultural themes from feminism to termination.

After A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining returns, aside from in page length. His last novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages of topics Irving had examined more skillfully in prior novels (inability to speak, short stature, transgenderism), with a 200-page film script in the center to fill it out – as if padding were needed.

So we look at a new Irving with care but still a tiny glimmer of optimism, which shines hotter when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages long – “revisits the setting of The Cider House Novel”. That 1985 book is part of Irving’s top-tier books, located mostly in an children's home in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

The book is a letdown from a author who once gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and acceptance with vibrancy, humor and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a significant book because it left behind the subjects that were becoming annoying tics in his novels: the sport of wrestling, bears, Austrian capital, prostitution.

The novel begins in the fictional community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome 14-year-old foundling the title character from the orphanage. We are a few years before the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor is still recognisable: even then dependent on ether, beloved by his caregivers, starting every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in this novel is restricted to these initial scenes.

The couple are concerned about raising Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a adolescent Jewish female understand her place?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to the area, where she will enter the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist militant group whose “mission was to protect Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would eventually become the core of the IDF.

These are massive themes to address, but having presented them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is hardly about St Cloud's and Dr Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s additionally not really concerning Esther. For causes that must involve story mechanics, Esther becomes a substitute parent for another of the Winslows’ offspring, and delivers to a baby boy, the boy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this story is the boy's tale.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both regular and specific. Jimmy relocates to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s mention of dodging the draft notice through bodily injury (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a meaningful name (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, authors and male anatomy (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a duller figure than the heroine hinted to be, and the supporting players, such as pupils Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are one-dimensional too. There are a few amusing set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a few ruffians get beaten with a support and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a subtle author, but that is isn't the problem. He has consistently restated his ideas, telegraphed story twists and enabled them to accumulate in the viewer's mind before leading them to resolution in lengthy, jarring, funny sequences. For example, in Irving’s books, anatomical features tend to go missing: recall the oral part in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses resonate through the story. In this novel, a key person is deprived of an limb – but we only learn 30 pages the finish.

She reappears in the final part in the novel, but just with a eleventh-hour sense of wrapping things up. We never do find out the entire story of her experiences in the region. The book is a failure from a writer who once gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that Cider House – I reread it alongside this work – still stands up beautifully, 40 years on. So choose that as an alternative: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but 12 times as great.