The Pleasure of My Company

I loved this little book so much that I read it slowly, often rereading Steve Martin's elegant prose several times just to admire his pacing, his language, and the heart he infuses into the main character, a neurotic, funny, good guy named Daniel, mostly home-bound in his Santa Monica apartment because he's too quirky to hold down a job, and has a thing about crossing streets at normal curbs to get very far without elaborate plans to access opposing scooped-out driveways, where he is willing to cross.

Throughout the story, we see Daniel in love with a succession of women -- Zandy, the pharmacist at the Rite-Aid; Clarissa, his student psychologist-in-training; and Elizabeth, the leasing agent who reps the local apartments:

"I'm hoping that my status as a murder suspect will enhance my first meeting with Elizabeth. It could jazz things up a bit. Of course, in the same breath I will tell her that I was cleared long ago, but I'll wait just that extra second before I do in order to make sure I've enchanted her."

Daniel forces himself to move beyond his self-imposed cocoon, and makes a discovery that explains the source of his deep insecurities and phobias. He wants one of the women he's in love with to love him back, but he also realizes his marketability is limited. One night, he lays in bed and decides to examine and "measure the life I'd led so far. I did not know what made me this way. I did not know of any other way I could be. I did not know what was inside me or how I could redeem what was hidden there. . . I closed the evening this desolate thought: There are few takers for the quiet heart."

The novel keeps a wonderful balance of the heartfelt and the humorous, as Daniel keeps looking for the key that will let him return to his best self, and even become that guy who can enchant a lovely lady.