Tropic of Orange

Bobby is a hard-working Chinese Singaporean immigrant who runs a successful janitorial business in Los Angeles, California. The chapters that focus on Bobby are all named after financial concerns, such as “Benefits,” “Life Insurance,” and “Social Security.”

Bobby’s world revolves around material success and happiness. Because he comes from a family whose business was ruined by no fault of their own, Bobby does all he can to shore up as many resources as possible. He is not as intellectually inclined as Rafaela, and so their individual philosophies are put at odds when Rafaela begins to talk of the need to unionize for protection and better working conditions for those in the janitorial services. Bobby’s unwillingness to accept her idea leads to Rafaela running away with their son to Mexico. While they are gone, Bobby realizes how much of his life revolves around his wife and son and becomes obsessed with getting them back.

Bobby’s plot arc revolves around reuniting with Rafaela and Sol. This goal is diverted when he receives a letter from a human trafficker explaining that his cousin has snuck into Mexico and needs a ransom paid. This cousin, a young girl, reminds him of himself and Carnalito when they first immigrated. After bringing her back to Los Angeles, he reunites with Rafaela and Sol at the match between SUPERNAFTA and El Gran Mojado. He is the only one in the audience who sees SUPERNAFTA shoot El Gran Mojado.

Emi is a second-generation Japanese American working for a news station. Emi’s chapters are named after news and entertainment topics, such as “Weather Report,” “Disaster Movie Week,” and “Commercial Break.” Since they met in college, she has been in an on-and-off relationship with Gabriel. Emi has a sarcastic and flirty personality. She is business-oriented, always thinking about events in terms of news stories, commercials, and entertainment.

Emi is shocked to realize that Manzanar Murakami is her estranged grandfather; this makes it difficult for her to continue Gabriel’s investigation. When Buzzworm tries to convince her to talk to Murakami, Emi is shot in a drive-by shooting. Manzanar Murakami sees this from his bridge and experiences a bout of sadness he does not understand, but the event places her at the epicenter of the novel’s climactic event. The gunshot that hits Emi causes the entire freeway encampment to erupt in a violent massacre at the hands of the military and the police. Buzzworm escapes with Emi. She dies in his arms and is airlifted from the scene by the NewsNow helicopter, her death sensationalized by the news industry she worked for and that she always regarded as sensationalistic.

Buzzworm is a self-appointed social worker and Angel of Mercy in a poor and mostly Black area of Los Angeles. Buzzworm is tall and sports dreadlocks; his attire usually includes a shirt printed with palm trees (one of his favorite symbols for the area he grew up in). Buzzworm is concerned with the well-being of Los Angeles’s most vulnerable populations, the unhoused and poor people of color. He takes interest not only in vulnerable Black youth, but also in the undocumented fruit vendors across the city, including a woman named Margarita, with whom he had a special relationship. Buzzworm’s chapters are all radio-station related, such as “Station ID,” “AM/FM,” and “Hour 25.”

Like Arcangel, Buzzworm is a point of intersection for several of the characters in the novel. Buzzworm is Gabriel’s street contact. They have a pact that Buzzworm will supply Gabriel with the material for a Pulitzer Prize-winning article, and the two of them will split the prize money. Consequently, Buzzworm gives Gabriel the lead on both Manzanar Murakami and the baby organ trafficking scheme that takes Gabriel to Mexico City. Buzzworm is also one of the first people in the city to catch onto the fact that oranges are poisoned.

Buzzworm meets Emi through Gabriel, and, though they butt heads, he eventually grows to like her. Buzzworm is charismatic enough for NewsNow to give him his own talk show and news segment during the freeway takeover. When violence erupts in the encampment and Emi is shot in a drive-by shooting, he escapes with her, comforting her as she dies.

Manzanar Murakami is an unhoused Japanese American man who spends his days on a bridge over the Harbor Freeway in downtown Los Angeles. He measures time by the flow of traffic throughout the day and conducts grand symphonies with the cars as his instruments. Though it initially appears that these symphonies exist only in his mind, they become objectively real as the orange containing the Tropic of Cancer reaches Los Angeles near the end of the novel, evidence of The Centrality of Marginalized Perspectives.

Murakami’s presence displeases the Japanese community of Little Tokyo, who have unsuccessfully tried to relocate him several times in the past. Manzanar Murakami used to be a surgeon, but he left one day for his current life. Emi is his granddaughter, and in his old life, Manzanar Murakami was fond of her. Initially, Manzanar Murakami alone translates the noise of Los Angeles into music, and only he alone hears it. However, as the chaos grows and the Tropic of Cancer disrupts the city’s physical and social geography, people begin to hear his music, and other unhoused “conductors” add their symphonies to Murakami’s.

Gabriel is a reporter for a major Los Angeles newspaper who owns a property in Mazatlán, Mexico that he visits occasionally. The names of Gabriel’s chapters refer to different aspects of his occupation, such as “The Interview,” “Overtime,” and “Deadline.” He has dark features, a striking profile, and black hair tied in a ponytail. Gabriel is a romantic at heart, and he has a great love for cinema, especially film noir. Because of this, his chapters are the only ones in first person, mimicking the narration of detective movies. Gabriel was inspired to become a reporter by Ruben Salazar, a Hispanic reporter who was killed in the line of duty.

Gabriel has a professional relationship with Buzzworm: Buzzworm provides him with story leads in return for the exposure Gabriel’s news articles provide for the causes he cares about. Through Buzzworm, Gabriel begins a series of articles profiling the unhoused population of Los Angeles, with Manzanar Murakami serving as the face of the series. Buzzworm is also his lead in investigating the human organ smuggling ring that takes him to Mexico City. Gabriel rescues Rafaela, a woman he helped through school and for whom he possibly harbors romantic feelings, after she is attacked and beaten. Despite this, he continues to investigate the increasing number of leads in his case.