“I’m quick to anger, which is something I got from my dad.” He may be a senior on the wrestling team, but he is no leader. “I keep things to myself,” he says on the second page. Amidst macho posturing and “I will win” thoughts, Stephen admits to serious flaws.
From the outset, we know something is amiss. The style is confessional but never sentimental. The novel is written in the first person, and Stephen is not shy with the reader: He candidly shares his thoughts, and the tone is sharp. Rather, it’s a character study and a rocky bildungsroman. Yet this story is no quaint campus novel, nor another ode to sport. Set in a small North Dakota town, the reader follows the title character, a college senior, on his quest to win a wrestling championship. Gabe Habash’s debut novel of the same name, Stephen Florida, will lure you into the depths of his mania. He dines on broccoli and celery, allows himself to drink only “two allotted cups of skim milk.” His “midnight snack” is “roasted zucchini and squash.” When the mother of his only friend, Linus, comes to visit, she prepares eggs with olive oil, sans salt and butter. As a monk may fast in penance, Stephen Florida wants his championship “bad enough to starve for it.” He has to be 133 pounds at weigh-in before a meet.
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