Notes

Part One of Tangerine shows us the sinister and unstable things that lurk below the surface of a middle-class, suburban, American life. Paul Fisher’s critical view of his family and the people of Tangerine County is the lens that allows us to see what lies below this surface. In the journal entries that comprise the story, Paul says honestly the things he observes and the things he knows to be happening. As the Fisher family settles into their new home in an expensive housing development, Lake Windsor Downs, it becomes apparent that the pleasant appearance of the neighborhood has its flaws. The muck-fires that constantly erupt, causing smoke to blow around the houses, are the first revelation of this. These fires seem symbolic of smoldering problems that have yet to erupt. One of these looming problems is Erik. We know that Paul is afraid of Erik, because Paul repeatedly says so; but for a while, we don’t quite know why. It’s not until Mike Costello dies that we get our first glimpse of Erik’s cruelty as he and Arthur laugh about how Mike died. It almost seems that Erik takes pleasure in the death.
Beyond the Fisher family and Lake Windsor Downs, Part One of Tangerine presents a critical view of football and football culture. We see that Erik, the star of the football team, has a dark side, but we also see how the team negatively impacts the broader community. There seems to be little compassion for the family of Mike Costello after he dies and there’s also little concern for the safety of the other players. The football team will be the glory of Tangerine County, it seems, and the detriment of everyone around it.
While the novel presents a cultural critique of middle-class American life, it also a fascinating view of a unique place: Tangerine County in central Florida. Lake Windsor Downs is a housing development that seems to have been designed to appear “normal.” It has its standards of colors and mailbox sizes. It seems as though it could be transplanted to any other part of America and the community would stay the same. Yet the physical geography of the area transforms it into something unique. Tangerine is the county with the most lightning strikes in the entire country. The weather plays a vital role in the story—literally killing one character and then inducing the sinkhole that swallows part of the middle school. As the sinkhole opens up at the end of Part One, it becomes apparent just how much this is a novel about surfaces and what lies beneath.
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