He does not try to extrapolate Stephen’s narrative into some all-encompassing portrayal of ambition and hubris, but remains firmly in the realm of this particular boy in this particular moment. But most important, I think, is the way Habash understands the limits of his subject matter. Just when you think you’ve got Stephen pegged, he surprises you with a meditation on Mary Beth, his brief love interest, or on Linus, a fellow wrestler with whom he has a strange and strained relationship. Habash has created a fascinating protagonist in Stephen, a hard-driven athlete with a convincingly thoughtful mind - though an erratic one, too. Do a person’s goals determine the means to achieve them? Or can a sport create these dreams through repetitive and torturous training? Rather, it tries to understand the kind of person who would be attracted to such a vocation in the first place. First, Stephen’s drive is reinforced or curated not by his coaches but by himself, and second, the novel doesn’t present his grandiose ambitions and unrepentant will as heroic or necessary or even good. “Stephen Florida” is not some Hollywood sports story. Stephen’s drive has brought him to the brink, but is it too late for him to give up? The sport itself, in other words, is beside the point, as are the actual benefits of succeeding. By the time the above statement is made to Stephen, he’s veered far away from mere determination and ended up near monomania, and his will to win has become enmeshed in bitter jealousy, calculated malice and philosophical scrutiny. Habash’s novel follows Stephen through his event-filled final season and traces his complex inner turmoil as he pursues his unbending ambition to dominate the competition. “A lot of the time they don’t do it early enough.” He’s commenting on life in the oil fields of North Dakota, where Stephen is considering a job after college, but he might as well be describing Stephen’s current situation: He’s a wrestler at Oregsburg College in the late 1970s, and it’s his senior year, which means it’s his last chance to win a collegiate championship. “People are bad at giving up,” a man tells the title character late in “Stephen Florida,” Gabe Habash’s debut novel.

Gabe habash stephen florida