Steve Martin's "The Pleasure of My Company"

This isn't really a funny novel so much as a novel about a nut. Specifically about a character living in Santa Monica named "Daniel Pecan Cambridge" who lives on disability checks and has a bad case of obsessive compulsive disorder. Daniel lives in a world of restrictions such as street curbs and light bulb wattages and chronic unemployment. He scrapes by by getting checks from Grandma in Texas and disability checks, yet he longs for a relationship with the women he sees in his life, Zandy his pharmacist, Clarissa his visiting psychologist, and a sharp-looking real estate agent he sees across the street repeatedly trying to rent property.

As the story progresses we are gradually let in on Daniel's world and we get a vivid picture of the women in his life, all the more vivid for the psychological restrictions that keep him chaste. Daniel is an observer. He sees and analyzes from his apartment window, from his building stairwell, from chance meetings with neighbors. As such, from his perspective we get a vivid portrait of his world, as the mystery of himself and those people around him is revealed.

Steve Martin, of course, has been known for years as the "wild and crazy guy" with the arrow through the head, or the King Tut headpiece, and the banjo. He has gone on to make numerous films which run the gamut from masterful to awful. However it is nice to know that when he has full creative control, as with his writing, he is truly an artist. I have enjoyed everything I have ever read by Steve Martin from "Cruel Shoes", "Pure Drive", "Picasso at the Lapin Agile", "The Underpants" to "The Pleasure of My Company."