Tropic of Orange

The most important orange in the novel contains the Tropic of Cancer and was grown on a tree on Gabriel’s property in Mazatlán, Mexico, right on the tropic. The tree the orange grew on is small and in poor condition, but Rafaela took extra care in nurturing it. The tree represents trade and movement between countries in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres: “It was a navel orange tree, maybe the descendant of the original trees first brought to California from Brazil in 1837 and planted by L.C. Tibbetts” (13). The tree came from Riverside, California, an area of California known for citrus experimentation and cultivation. Gabriel views the planting of a tree from America in Mexico as “a significant act of some sort,” and he planted it “as a marker—to mark the Tropic of Cancer” (13).

The plot of the novel tracks the movement of the orange from Mazatlán to Los Angeles. Because the line of the Tropic of Cancer runs through the orange, it distorts weather, geography, time, and space as it moves. The orange moves the tropic along with it, forcing the South into the North in a great collision of cultures akin to the end of the world, as prophesized by