Hal vs. Stice, the bleacher talk (pp. 675–676)

The sons, too, exist here only by relation. On the court Hal is never Hal but "the samizdat Entertainment's director's other son," "the punter's brother," "this kid, the punter's brother"; deLint sizes him up explicitly against "his brother when he was here." Both Incandenza boys are appendages in outsiders' grammar — one defined by the father's lethal film, the other by the father and by each other, neither allowed a self that isn't a possessive construction. The theme's inheritance shown as syntax: to the watching world you are your father's genitive, the director's other son, the punter's brother, performing in the shadow of a man reduced to "the director" and a sibling reduced to "the punter."