Molly Notkin’s interrogation (pp. 790–791)
had been placed there by the spouse’s widow-to-be—who may well have been enraged by the fact that the Auteur had never been willing to give up spirits quote ‘for her’ but had apparently been willing to give them up quote ‘for’ Madame Psychosis
Context
The Claudius/Gertrude machinery, floated as a theory of the father's death. Jim went dry for three and a half months as Madame Psychosis's condition for appearing in the film, then died with his head in the microwave — and next to it, on the counter, a gift bottle of Wild Turkey with a cerise ribbon bowed under its wattles, which Molly Notkin finds it not improbable was set there by the widow-to-be, enraged that he'd give up drink "for" the actress and never "for her." It's the anthology's darkest reading of the marriage: the wife as possible planter of the fatal temptation beside the dying king, jealousy as motive, the champagne-and-shimmer serenity of the Thanksgiving table reread as the calm of the person who arranged the death. Offered as conjecture and left standing — the frame doesn't confirm it, it lets it hang.