Stephen Florida (Hardcover)
Staff Reviews
This book is gross. Wrestling is gross. Stephen Florida is gross.
Like The Art of Fielding, Stephen Florida is the "sports novel" that is both literary and psychological.
And much how popping a pimple can be deeply engrossing, this debut from Gabe Habash is unsettlingly captivating.
— From Cody M. Staff Picks
This haunting debut stuck with me for weeks after turning the last page. A novel of singular obsession, alienation, and flat-out surreal strangeness
-- Adam
— From Adam B. Staff PicksDescription
"In Stephen Florida, Gabe Habash has created a coming-of-age story with its own, often explosive, rhythm and velocity. Habash has a canny sense of how young men speak and behave, and in Stephen, he's created a singular character: funny, ambitious, affecting, but also deeply troubled, vulnerable, and compellingly strange. This is a shape-shifter of a book, both a dark ode to the mysteries and landscapes of the American West and a complex and convincing character study."
--Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little Life
Foxcatcher meets The Art of Fielding, Stephen Florida follows a college wrestler in his senior season, when every practice, every match, is a step closer to greatness and a step further from sanity. Profane, manic, and tipping into the uncanny, it's a story of loneliness, obsession, and the drive to leave a mark.
Gabe Habash is the fiction reviews editor for Publishers Weekly. He holds an MFA from New York University and lives in New York.
About the Author
Gabe Habash: Gabe Habash is the fiction reviews editor for Publishers Weekly. He holds an MFA from New York University and lives in New York.
