Description
Book Synopsis'Illuminating . . . there is never a dull moment' - The Times
'Marvellous . . . full of riches' - New Statesman
David Milch is the critically acclaimed writer of the iconic TV series Deadwood and NYPD Blue. As he descends into a dementia from which there's no return, Life's Work is his account of his increasingly strange present and his often painful past.
Betting on race horses and stealing booze at eight years old, mentored by Robert Penn Warren and excoriated by Richard Yates at twenty-one, Milch never did anything by half. He got into Yale Law School only to be expelled for shooting out streetlights. He paused his studies at the Iowa Writers' Workshop to manufacture acid. He created some of the most lauded television series of all time, started a family and pursued sobriety, only to lose his fortune betting on the horses – just as his successful but drug-addicted father had taught
Trade Review
Marvellous . . . a book full of riches. -- Erica Wagner * The New Statesman *
Life’s Work is one of the best books about television I’ve read. It’s funny, discursive, literate, druggy, self-absorbed, fidgety, replete with intense perceptions… You finish feeling you’ve really met someone. Milch was his own best creation. * New York Times *
A searing, brutally honest memoir. * The Independent *
A brilliant, emotional memoir . . . Takes the darkness of his own life and of those around him and turns it into something else, something that is threaded with hope. * Mail on Sunday *
A wise, sly, hilarious, and poignant account of a life's work in hard drugs and hard television. -- Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Netanyahus
Illuminating. * The Observer *
The most gorgeously humane voice I've encountered in a work of nonfiction in a long while. I can think of few recent books that have pulsed with life this transparently, this powerfully. -- Rick Moody, author of The Ice Storm
Like the best memoirs, Life's Work is intimate, exquisitely observed, and intense. But unlike most - and what sets it apart - is the heartbreak it embodies, the finality it signals. This is David Milch's farewell, and it will rock you. -- Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief
An extraordinary story. * The Times *
