David Milch
Published: September 13, 2022
Read: October 10, 2022
Life’s work was not the memoir of sex, drugs, and television production I was expecting. I was familiar with the author, the television show writer David Milch, creator of Deadwood (which I have watched and love) and NYPD Blue (which I have not seen). Life’s work is a book concerning a man who created some good television and had a more than average grasp of language and story telling. The memoir is not limited to behind the scenes Hollywood insights, but takes that base and layers on ideas of memory faith and trauma that go a bit beyond.
Beyond the accomplishments and trials of Milch’s professional life, this book is about aging, and difficulty recounting life while the one living is still around. At the time of writing, David Milch has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and is living in an assisted care facility. Life’s Work was written with the assistance of journals throughout Milch’s life and his wife, friends and other family recollections to round out the tale. At my own middling age of 33, I haven’t been too closely acquainted with death or the loss of one’s mind. I have two living grandparents even though I’ve lost two already who i knew well.
David Milch was born in 1945. He describes his childhood and his relationship with his father. A doctor professionally and a non-professional gambler at the racetrack. The younger Milch admits this may have established the bedrock of what may be an obsessive or self hating cycle of excitement and failure repeated constantly that is much like wagering $50 on 8:1 odds at the track. His abuse at the hands of another adult during his time as a child. At some point whether spoken or unspoken, David is appointed within the Milch family to be the token fuck-up, even as he became a writer and grabbed success. His travels through college and beyond into writing for TV.
Milch is a religious man, he believes in Jesus Christ but infuses his faith in god with a few wry jokes. His belief in Jesus Christ emerges throughout the stories he has written over the years, and had the man himself featured in a particular Episode of NYPD Blue . Milch recounts that the impetus for the show that became Deadwood was a story involving St. Paul in Rome and his life of suffering and trying to do right by God. How Deadwood emerged was replacing the searching for God for searching for gold in the old west.
The last chapter somberly serves as I think a summation or perhaps an obituary, written by a man who knows his mind is fleeting, if not his life, and is scrambling to put it onto paper. I’ve never felt so moved by this book that should just be a “hey a fuckup went to Yale and made some tv” memoir.
Life’s Work left an impression on me. The impression given from a man who’s life is coming to an end, who sat with me for a while and made me realize that maybe in the grand scheme of the cosmos, someone born in 1945 may be closer to my age than I’d like to believe, and the time we have is indeed fleeting.
And hot damn the writing is fantastic.
John (Jake) Kolb III 