The Pleasure of My Company
Steve Martin's "gifts for subtlety and slyness compare to those of the finest comic novelists" (People) and his latest New York Times bestseller--a witty and tender tour de force--is now in paperback!
Shopgirl revealed the novelist in Steve Martin--witty, tender, intelligent, and passionate about his craft. And with the successful publication of The Pleasure of My Company, his reputation as one of our most gifted writers has been confirmed. Here, the reader is introduced to Daniel Pecan Cambridge, whose life is full and rich--but only within the confines of his Santa Monica apartment. Daniel's pathological obsession with street curbs and gas station attendants wearing blue hats may prevent him from venturing into the world outside of his window, but not from pursuing romance in his own peculiar way.
Meticulously constructed, laugh-out-loud funny, and brilliantly inventive, Steve Martin's chronicle of a modern-day neurotic yearning to break free has touched more than 200,000 readers. Now in paperback, thousands more can have the pleasure of discovering his most delightful novel to date.
Mr. K's Book of Really Nasty Jokes
Freddy and Fredericka
one-year-old child. But Clarissa spotted them and was either curious or knew something about them that I didn't know. Then Clarissa broke the spell. "What's this?" she asked. "Oh," I said. "It's a magic square." Clarissa arched her body back while she studied my proudest 256 boxes. "Every column and row adds up to four hundred ninety-one thousand, three hundred eighty-four," I said. "You made this?" "Last night. Do you know Albrecht Dürer?" I asked. Clarissa nodded. I crouched down to my
callous. She'd found herself in a spot all right and I was going to enjoy watching her wriggle free, because how she handled it would reveal how she felt about me. Forty minutes later Elizabeth, former woman-of-the-world turned sorority deb, showed up at my place on her tour through the available apartments of Santa Monica. She mistakenly knocked on Philipa's door, which set Tiger barking. I called up the landing to her and her voice, like a melodeon, greeted me with an "Oh," and she turned her
scrap of paper right-side up causing the 9 to be a 6. She came down the steps at a bent angle, her torso twisted from trying to see the steps from around her breasts. I tried to appear richer than I was, but it was hard as I didn't have much to work with. Mostly I had put things away that would indicate poverty, like opened bags of Chee·tos with their contents spilling onto the Formica. I did set out a packet of plastic trash liners because I thought they were a luxury item. She came in and
package similar entities in different boxes, separate them out, and assign my taboos. I was at the bottom of the stairs when time caught up to itself. A child's scream broke my thoughts; chaotic and angry voices jarred me. I heard my breath gasp and heave as I turned and headed toward the lawn. The attacker pushed his voice to a rasp and I heard him yelling cunt, cunt, you cunt. I was barreling across the grass when he turned and grabbed the child's arm, trying to pull him up, but I threw myself
it difficult—okay, impossible—to cross the street at the corners. The symmetry of two scooped-out driveways facing each other makes a lot of sense to me. I see other people crossing the street at the curb and I don't know how they can do it. Isn't a curb forbidding? An illogical elevation imposing itself between the street and the sidewalk? Crosswalks make so much sense, but laid between two ominous curbs they might as well be at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Who designed this? Daffy Duck?
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