Stephen Florida

‘Powerful and magnetic’ Guardian

‘Mind blowing’ Roxane Gay

‘Explosive’ Hanya Yanagihara

‘Funny and disturbing’ Lauren Groff

Meet Stephen Florida: college student, amateur wrestler, visionary, outsider.

Entering senior year, his sights are set on the championships. Every practice, every match, is a step closer to greatness, yet also a step further from reality. Profane, manic and tipping into the uncanny, this is Florida’s chronicle of loneliness, obsession, and the drive to leave a mark.

With echoes of The Art of Fielding and the film Foxcatcher, Gabe Habash’s daring, revelatory debut journeys into the mind of a young man teetering between control and rage, grief and elation, genius and insanity.