The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin

The reader knows Daniel very well by the end of the novel, so well that the conclusion comes as a sweetly gentle reminder that there is someone for everyone. Martin keeps the focus clearly on the protagonists' desires with no side trips into obscuration or pointless miscellany. Steve Martin writes with a clean, well-centered point of view. A small cast of characters from neighbors to his therapist, to the young woman who works at the Rite Aid may be able to help him with that. He creates magic squares to help him relax and he writes entries to essay contests.Īnd Daniel fears that these two disparate elements of himself - the genius and the neurotic - will forever keep him from forming a relationship. He has a compulsion to touch all four corners of copy machines.īut Daniel is also a mathematical genius. The wattage of the lightbulbs in his apartment must always equal 1125. Daniel has rules for his life: He can not cross the street at curbs, only at exactly opposing driveways.

The novel tells the story of Daniel Pecan Cambridge, a neurotic obsessive-compulsive, as he tries, in his own straight-jacketed way to find love. The Pleasure of My Company is a sweet, poignant story from master comedian Steve Martin. This book succeeded in endearing me completely to Steve Martin. The character even comments on this at one point, that each human being had their own secret 'rules'. It was a story of a man with challenges, but it didn't harp constantly on how different and alien these challenges made him. I guess in that breath I was also glad that the disorder was not really the focus of the novel. I think the character was very believable, although admittedly I have a very limited very of this kind of mental disorder. It was easy and natural, yet still the voice was clear and distinct. The style this time seemed less reaching and less verbose.

Yet at the same time I would have been disheartened with anything else. Felt closer to them each time the main character reached just a little bit more out of his self imposed bubble.Įverything worked out almost too perfectly in the end for all of the characters-it reminded me of Love Stargirl in that way-the kind of optimism that could make you uneasy. The difference? I loved and cared about the characters. This book is obviously less meditative, and certainly more outright sappy-but I loved almost every moment of it. Hesitant, but some moments of Shopgirl made me feel like I also sort of owed him. I have to say that after I read Shopgirl I was hesitant to give Steve Martin another try.

The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin