LIFE'S WORK

A poetic, gripping memoir from the game-changing creator of NYPD Blue and Deadwood, whose brilliance is surpassed only by his
legendary penchant for self-destruction.

David Milch is the creator of game-changing television including (but not limited to) - Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, Deadwood. In his memoir he shows readers so much more about the man and his extraordinary life as a writer. There is a tensile feeling to this work, as if the storyteller couldn't possible survive to live through to the next chapter. From his earliest childhood through to today, Milch has almost miraculously endured, his brilliance surpassed only by his legendary penchant for self-destruction.

Throughout his life, Milch has been a ferocious intellectual force constantly at odds with himself. He got into Yale only to be expelled for shooting street lights with a shotgun; he graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, studying under and also working with Robert Penn Warren (and it many ways that academic, and yet very close relationship saved his life). Not long thereafter, he moved to Mexico to manufacture acid while simultaneously developing a devoted heroin addiction. Not much later, he got involved in writing for television (truly by accident) and wrote and created some of the biggest, most lauded television series of all time. Wildly, soon thereafter, he then lost his $25 million fortune at the horse track that his father (who had been a high-functioning alcoholic who committed suicide) used to take him to as a child. Loads of parenthetical bits and pieces in his full life..

There are vivid portraits of actors and co-writers, all devotedly working on scenes with intense realism that adds to the understanding of Milch's total involvement in his art, all helping to make this a rare and unforgettable book. Milch is one of the most fiery minds of all time and now he is now struggling with Alzheimer's, his tale goes beyond life story, and is also about loss, memory, and legacy. This ravaging illness gives an urgency and poignancy to his reflections: "I feel like I'm on a boat sailing to some island where I don't know anybody. I'm on a boat someone is operating and we aren't in touch." This is an unbelievable life story, encompassing the debauchery of a rock memoir, the trauma of a shambolic childhood, the misery of outsize addiction, and the literary pedigree of a great American writer.

David Milch graduated summa cum laude from Yale University, where he won the Tinker Prize. He earned a MFA from the Iowa Writers'
Workshop at the University of Iowa. He worked as a writing teacher and lecturer in English literature at Yale. During his teaching career, he assisted Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks in the writing of several college textbooks on literature. His poetry and fiction have been published in The Atlantic and Southern Review. Among many other credits, Milch created and wrote the shows NYPD Blue, John From Cincinnati, Luck, and Deadwood.