David Milch is losing his mind to Alzheimers. With the help of his wife and children, he recounts his wild life and career in television, hoping to leave some nugget of a truth learned from it all. For those who aren’t familiar with him, Milch is the greatest psychological writer of character since Dostoevsky. It’s been said he writes dialogue on par with Shakespeare. He graduated sigma cum laude from Yale while drunk and taking heroin most of the time. It’s that dichotomy that allowed Milch to have such a deep understanding of people and their actions. His medium was television, and this work demonstrates why talent in that medium can get buried. His writing here remains phenomenal, despite his diminishing faculties. His prose mimics the style of the life period he’s recounting, a la A Portrait of the Artist…:from Kerouac-esque unhinged twenties to the twisting and turning stream-of-conscious of a demented septuagenarian. It also includes the most beautiful description of horse racing you’ll ever read. He’s a funny guy on and off the drugs, and he shares a lot of the frustration that comes from working in the hollywood industry without holding a grudge about it. There’s plenty of heartbreak and joy, love and betrayal, all of the things that make a full life. “Life’s Work” will probably appeal to few outside of “Deadwood” fans and aspiring screenwriters, which is a shame because Milch’s insight into human nature is unparalleled. Although I felt the heartbreak through every page of knowing this is the last work we will ever get from him, I loved every single sentence of it. I can’t recommend it highly enough. 

 

P.S. If you haven’t seen “Deadwood,” you should make it your next binge watch. For my money, it is the best television show ever made (it makes Yellowstone look like Dudley Do-Right). If nothing else, it still holds the record for most creative use of the word “cocksucker.”