“The special squeaks and thumps heard in practice, which is the sound of your own flesh’s wet exertion…”
– Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash
“I’ve gone about as far as I can go with this body, Ted.”
– Linda Litzke, Burn After Reading
Gabe Habash’s brand new novel Stephen Florida puts you in a literary headlock and holds you there until you like it. You become enthralled—nay, enraptured—with an orphaned college wrestler living in a town you’ve never heard of. Whether it’s loneliness fueled by obsession or obsession fueled by loneliness, it breeds an unhealthy determination in Stephen reminiscent of a Coen Brothers character: one Linda Litzke from Burn After Reading.
With this movie and novel pairing, you’ll find:
- Characters that put the ‘mania’ in monomania, with goals not always understood by others
- Clueless authority figures
- Pitiable assignations and reconnaissance work
- Unapologetic misanthropes
- Madness so pure it becomes its own form of logic
- Unexpected surges of violence blended with crude jokes
- Blatant interference with the secret lives of strangers
- Juiced-up gym rats
- Intellectuals tumbling from their established perches
- Schoolyard-level insults in serious contexts
- Inescapable failures and futilities
- Deep-seated motivation so powerful it corrodes everything it surrounds
- Permanent physical changes as trophies of value systems
This pairing proves that you can be both an idiot and a genius simultaneously. That maturity is surprisingly imbalanced, and wisdom can be at odds with knowledge. Steep tiers of success are met with leveled playing fields in a fierce competition with the self more than anyone else. And when you’re wavering in enthusiasm, simply “Drink your green camel-hump juice and say to yourself you’re not a wastrel.”