Daniel has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and thus acts out compulsive behaviors such as stepping over cracks in the sidewalk.Įlizabeth Warner is a real estate agent whom Daniel falls in love with from afar.
The novel revolves around Daniel, his obsessions, and his interactions with the world around his home in Santa Monica, California.ĭaniel Pecan Cambridge is the book's protagonist. Daniel is a wonderfully characterised anti-hero-a natural, perhaps, for Martin himself to play when the inevitable movie is made.The Pleasure of My Company is a 2003 novel by Steve Martin, which tells the story of the life of Daniel Pecan Cambridge, an introverted young man with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Novels by comedians can often collapse into a series of one-liners, and while there are some zingers here, Martin is a real novelist-this quirky black comedy has both a solidly realised structure and a sharply etched cast. The attention of the media seems set to keep him living an abnormal life for quite some time, which might undercut his hopes of winning the "Most Average American" competition. But his compulsions are only one of his problems his neighbour Bob has been murdered and Daniel is in the frame for the crime. One of his aims is a normal relationship with a woman and there are several potential targets in sight: his therapist Clarissa, struggling to relieve him of his demons, Zandy, the beguiling assistant in the chemist's shop, and Elizabeth, selling apartments in his street. The small, irrational fears that plague most of us are the bane of Daniel's life, but he resolves to shed these straitjackets and move into something like normality. Martin's protagonist is Daniel Pecan Cambridge, a thirtyish loser whose life is wrecked by a whole slew of neurotic compulsions and tics. In books such as Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Shopgirl, Martin showed the same dazzling wordplay that marks his film and TV work, and his new novel, The Pleasure of My Company, builds on the earlier work to produce a book that is both effortlessly entertaining and beautifully wrought. Of all the celebrities who've tackled novels in recent years, one of the most conspicuously successful in the field is comic actor Steve Martin.
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