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If certain writers enjoy an imperial phase, during which they achieve the heights repeatedly, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a series of several fat, rewarding works, from his 1978 success The World According to Garp to 1989’s His Owen Meany Book. Such were rich, witty, big-hearted novels, connecting protagonists he describes as “misfits” to social issues from women's rights to termination.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning results, save in size. His last book, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages long of topics Irving had delved into more effectively in earlier novels (selective mutism, short stature, gender identity), with a two-hundred-page film script in the center to pad it out – as if filler were required.

Therefore we approach a latest Irving with care but still a faint flame of expectation, which glows hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages in length – “returns to the setting of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is among Irving’s very best books, located mostly in an orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Wilbur Larch and his assistant Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving explored abortion and acceptance with richness, comedy and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a major novel because it left behind the topics that were evolving into tiresome patterns in his works: grappling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

This book starts in the fictional community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the twentieth century's dawn, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in 14-year-old ward Esther from the orphanage. We are a few decades before the storyline of The Cider House Rules, yet Dr Larch remains recognisable: even then dependent on anesthetic, adored by his caregivers, starting every talk with “In this place...” But his appearance in the book is limited to these early parts.

The couple fret about raising Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “in what way could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will join the Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant organisation whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would later establish the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are massive subjects to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is hardly about the orphanage and Dr Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s also not focused on Esther. For reasons that must involve narrative construction, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for another of the couple's offspring, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the lion's share of this story is his tale.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both regular and particular. Jimmy moves to – naturally – the city; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through bodily injury (Owen Meany); a canine with a significant title (Hard Rain, meet the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, writers and penises (Irving’s throughout).

Jimmy is a more mundane figure than Esther hinted to be, and the secondary players, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s instructor the tutor, are flat also. There are some enjoyable set pieces – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a fight where a few thugs get beaten with a walking aid and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not ever been a subtle writer, but that is is not the issue. He has always reiterated his ideas, telegraphed narrative turns and allowed them to build up in the reader’s imagination before bringing them to resolution in extended, surprising, funny moments. For example, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to be lost: think of the tongue in Garp, the finger in His Owen Book. Those absences echo through the story. In this novel, a central person suffers the loss of an limb – but we merely learn 30 pages the end.

Esther comes back late in the book, but only with a last-minute feeling of ending the story. We not once learn the complete story of her time in Palestine and Israel. The book is a letdown from a writer who previously gave such joy. That’s the downside. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – I reread it together with this novel – yet stands up wonderfully, 40 years on. So pick up that as an alternative: it’s much longer as this book, but 12 times as good.