Himself's Wild Turkey year
a sudden infusion of patent-receipts left him feeling post-carrot anhedonic and existentially unmoored, and Himself took an entire year off to drink Wild Turkey and watch broadcast-television tycoon-operas
Context
The father's drinking located precisely in his history: a windfall of patent money leaves JOI "post-carrot anhedonic and existentially unmoored," and he answers the emptiness with a year of Wild Turkey and broadcast TV. The datum ties the family disease to the family's other afflictions — the anhedonia, the entertainment-hunger, the goallessness once the striving pays off — the alcoholic self-medication and the screen-immersion springing from the same unmoored source, which is the inheritance Hal is now living out.