Comments on: Looking for more like Milch...

Question: Looking for more like Milch...

dobbs — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:54:09 -0800

Novelists or short story writers who write like David Milch (Deadwood / John From Cincinnati)?

I really like John From Cincinnati and I love Deadwood. Does anyone write like this in prose form?

I'm looking for the same command of dialogue and/or conflict. Suggestions?

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:05:24 -0800

Milch's writing is much more stylized than much contemporary prose. He's a throwback, but he's also been influenced by 20th-Century writers like Mamet and Pinter. He combines their bluntness with an 18th-Century verbosity.

I recommend that you delve into the past. Read Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Dickens. Milch partly based the "Deadwood" dialogue on Dickensian prose. Some of his characters, such as D.B., could have walked right out of a Dickens novel.

You might also enjoy "Lonesome Dove."

By: shino-boy

shino-boy — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:33:34 -0800

I'm guilty of being a huge Deadwood fan. David Milch has written a hardcover book about the show:

Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills

It's a great read.

By: dersins

dersins — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:09:26 -0800

Kem Nunn, the co-creator of John From Cincinnati, has written a number of excellent novels. Crazy surf-noir stuff with great dialogue and characters, and often-surreal storylines. Not at all what you think of as surf novels, any more than John from Cincinnati is what you think of as a surf TV show. Tapping the Source is a true classic, and Dogs of Winter isn't far behind.

I'm sort of a Kem Nunn evangelist, if you can't tell. His books are truly deserving of a wider audience.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:38:32 -0800

In comics you might want to check out the work of Garth Ennis, particularly anything of his in a western vein.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:18:21 -0800

Thanks for the answers, folks. Unfortunately, I've pretty much read everything by everyone in the thread except Ennis.

Thanks, tho!

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:12:10 -0800

Unfortunately, I've pretty much read everything by everyone in the thread except Ennis.

Did my suggestion not appeal to you (which is fine) or have you seriously read EVERYTHING by William Shakespeare, James Austen and Charles Dickens? I read a ton of contemporary novels, but those bygone writers are much more like Milch -- especially "Deadwood" Milch that most modern writers.

If you've seriously read everything I suggest, move onto other Elizabethans: Johnson, etc.

By: shakobe

shakobe — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:30:31 -0800

Denis Johnson--Particularly "Already Dead".

By: johngoren

johngoren — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:24:21 -0800

Wasn't "Warlock," Thomas Pynchon's favorite Western novel, by Oakley Hall, a big influence on "Deadwood"? It has a really interesting dialogue style that's partly Victorian and partly Hemingway.