Search - The Pleasure of My Company

Daniel Pecan Cambridge is a normal, attractive, 30-ish young man. Well, he’s normal except for the fact that he has obsessive-compulsive disorder. In what would be an average person’s 15-minute walk to the Rite-Aid, Daniel turns the process into an hour-long jaunt — filled with twists, turns and double-backs, all so that he won’t have to step off of or onto a curb.

The total light wattage in Daniel’s house must be at 1125 watts. If a 30-watt bulb burns out, he must hurry to replace it with another 30-watt bulb before the tightness in his chest, faintness, and shortness of breath threatens to render him unconscious.

Now, in the hands of a lesser novelist, all this obsessive redundancy would read like a psychiatric dissertation. However, since the author of The Pleasure of My Company is the brilliantly funny Steve Martin, you can bet that Martin’s irony and cynical wit will shine through, creating a masterful portrait of a man who is fully aware that he is on the brink of insanity.

As an example of the aforementioned irony, Daniel enters and wins an essay contest as the most average American. Not only was he thought of as average, but as the leader of the average people. So Daniel justifies his title with the thought that he entered the contest as a lark — he merely wanted an excuse to hang out by the entry forms at the Rite-Aid so he could watch his favorite pharmacist, Zandy, in action.

The Pleasure of My Company, Steve Martin’s second novella, equals and then surpasses his first, Shopgirl. As Martin fine-tunes his knack for discovering and detailing the nuances we’ve all experienced, Company becomes an obsession for its reader, compelling him/her to read it through to the end in one sitting.

Read it for a bookclub and enjoyed it but spent most of the book imagining it as a movie screenplay where Steve Martin plays the leading role-- as would be expected, it captures his sense of humor well. Basic plot: obsessive compulsive man learns how to grow out of his shell and find meaningful friendships along the way by helping others.

This is Steve Martin's second novella. I purchased it based on how much I liked "Shopgirl" and it just sat on my bookshelf for a long time before I finally picked it up to read it. Well, I'm so glad I eventually did because it was a great read!

The narrator, Daniel Pecan Cambridge, is one of the quirkiest characters ever. He is obsessive compulsive and has all sorts of neuroses. He is deathly afraid of curbs and can only cross streets at perfectly symmetrical scooped out driveways, he has to keep the lighting in his apartment at the exactly 1,125 watts, and his life basically revolves around his twice-weekly sessions with Clarissa, a young psychology intern.

There were moments so hilarious that I had to literally put the book down to laugh out loud. But the humor was mixed in with tenderness and compassion. You could tell that Steve Martin loved this character as he wrote him. It showed from beginning to end. The writing was simple and almost poetic in places, and I think the short length was perfect.

Overall, I'll have to admit that I loved it. I adored Shopgirl, but I might have liked this book just a tad bit more. All I know is that I'll be anxiously awaiting whatever Steve Martin comes up with next.

Steve Martin's love affair with words is a thing of beauty in this carefully crafted novel that follows an obsessive-compulsive man's efforts to get out of his own way so he can get to know the object of his affection. The story amounts to a delightful, funny and touching read.

Steve Martin is one funny guy. And a great author too."The chronicle of a modern-day neurotic yearning to break free."

Steve Martin may be widely known as an actor, but he has the soul of a writer. After reading Shopgirl (and having my spirit sufficiently rocked by it) I knew I had to find another novella written by him to see if it was a fluke.

It wasn't.

The Pleasure of My Company is, again, a wonderful piece. The protagonist, Daniel, is a man of many obsessions. He is very much trapped by himself and his obsessions that restrict crossing the street and sleeping and everything else in his life. Martin is a master of characterization, continually proving that he can build believable and complex characters that people WANT to read about. To watch Daniel interact with the world and people around him is a treat, not only because he is funny in his quirkiness, but because he is a sympathetic character that you find yourself genuinely rooting for. When you close the book, I promise you will do so with a smile.

This novella is beautiful in its effortless simplicity; it is poignant and witty. It remains the only book that I have bought multiple copies of just to send around to friends.