I tried to come up with some snappy title for this, and I simply couldn't. Having finished Milch's recently published memoir only moments ago, I am absolutely stunned by the degree of earnestness and emotional intelligence he carries himself with, and thus it felt inappropriate to try and subvert that with some glib joke for the title (as is my usual fare).
I am, have been, and will continue to stand behind David Milch's Deadwood as one of, if not the best, television shows ever made, right up there in contention with The Sopranos; the two switch places in my head just depending on how I'm feeling that day. I expected to walk away from this text somewhat enlightened and with some insight into that show I love so much and the creative mind of the person who had written it, and through his work, had taught me some tricks and tools as a creator and writer, myself. What I actually found upon reading was a deeply sensitive and vulnerable work that did its utmost to relay the lessons learned by a man who can't quite remember them. Much like Milch is open about the many flaws in his character and black marks on his personal record, so is this "Life's Work" about his failing mind. He opens with a warning that he may talk in circles or that stories may deviate from the narrative truth of it as they are at the whims of his Alzheimer's and the various secondary accounts that allowed him to assemble the narrative at all. As the text progresses, he is honest about things he doesn't quite remember, from a story where he allegedly threatened to beat Michael Mann to death with a baseball bat to the exact particulars of incredibly formative childhood memories. This however does not harm the work; one of the central points Milch returns to throughout the work and remains true within its own bounds is that of emotional truth. The idea that one can tell a story that embodies the moment and emotional power even if its not technically true.
Milch holds this as essential for storytelling, not only to his personal stories or for those he created for TV, novels, or taught to the many writing students he's engaged with over his long career, but also for telling stories to ourselves. Through the many highs and lows of Milch's career, this sense of emotional honesty always takes precedence over what was happening in the literal sense. Just as Deadwood was built through context, so is the way Milch understands his own life. The moment towards the end when Milch's insane gambling debts finally come out, the story isn't really about how his long-suffering wife, Rita had to sort it all out; it's the story of how the personal character defects he'd been discussing led him to a place where he ran out of money and Rita loved him so much that she made it work. The stories of his debaucherous days at Yale, learning from Penn Warren and Yeats are not simply wild college stories told for the sake of their amusement, but deep dives into what father problems, neurosis, and experiences that brought him there and he brought to it. The work is incredibly passionate because of this approach, the whole text weeps earnest vulnerability and is made so much better for it. From the emotional lows of the Deadwood cancellation or his insane mountain of debt being revealed, to the ultimate highs of betting at the race track or shooting out light posts while tripped out on LSD, Milch wears his most unpleasent moments on his sleeve as a natural part of himself and is exceedinly honest about how they felt, even when it's not neccesarily what you want him to say.
Milch, above all, is a story-writer and he spends a lot of time discussing his experiences and motivations in writing. This, is where I found the true value of this book to me. For as ornamentally written it is and for as much as Milch talks about what was important to him as a writer, that was all on display for Deadwood, and I had largely gotten those messages through my experience watching and analyzing the show. However, Milch talking about why he writes and the why he writes the thing he does was revolutionary to me as a young writer trying to make sense of my own creative and artistic impulses. Well, not just those, but even my personal influences and the way that my identity as a writer bleeds into and even can occasionally compromise the way I handle situations or people through a flair for the dramatic and narrative sense. This memoir was truly revelatory to me, and I'm nowhere near done with it. Although I finished it, this book lends itself to many reads and I sense that I still have a lot to learn from David Milch. What I would've given to be one of his students. This review was originally going to be a lot longer, but I'm realizing that there is little more I could say that Milch doesn't say better himself within the text. Such is reviewing the work of one of the most self-aware artists I've ever come into contact with. Anyways, it's incredible, both as a wonderful text and a extraordinary repository of knowledge and inspiration. I'm not saying that I am anywhere near the man that Milch was, but I do want to say that reading this gave me a sense of a kindred spirit, it made me feel a lot less alone in the world.
Thank you, David Milch for a lifetime of incredible work.
P.S: Shoutout to Rita, the real MVP of Milch's life. Without her it seems like his life and work may have fallen apart entirely.