You will be back in no time and I know you will keep winning” – that we realise how relatively minor his injury is and that the darkness into which he has been thrust is not only unnecessary but disturbing. It’s only when his friend Linus leaves a note for him – “it is only a knee tear. When he finds himself in hospital, it seems as if his entire world is about to end. The novel takes a turn halfway through, when Stephen suffers an injury that threatens his ambitions. Eventually, though, I gave in, seduced by his unrelenting determination, despite the fact that he was holding me down and twisting my arm into places nature did not want it to go. There are some novels where, after a chapter or two, one feels exhausted at the prospect of what lies ahead, and 50 pages into Stephen Florida I felt as though I was being pinned to a wall – or rather a mat – by a teenage boy intent on telling me every detail of his exercise routine, about the importance of warm-ups, protein and sleep and the reason he keeps his hair in a military buzz cut. This self-control is replicated in the narrative tone, which veers between hypnotic and suffocating.
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