Tangerine is told in alternating chapters by Alice and Lucy, and as sentences like the above stuck out at me again and again, I wondered how the book might read if Lucy were the sole narrator. Compare 'At this information, at the power it provided me, my ears began to roar, my hands shake' to 'I stopped at one stall, and then another, purchasing a few grams of bright green olives at one, a stack of hot, sweating msemmen at another.' Unfortunately, the author's attempts to fix Lucy as potentially criminal are less successful than her depiction of Lucy immersed in Moroccan culture. Not for today's population, they don't, which may be why Mangan chose to set her debut in the 1950s, where social class and sexual identity were culturally more fixed and, therefore, scarier when threatened. We know that Lucy is in love - or, at least, lust - with Alice. We know that Lucy grew up above the garage her father owned and is envious of Alice's advantages. Unfortunately, this is where the novel veers way off course, because neither woman's character is firmly enough established. She's not just after what Alice has she's after who Alice is. What does Lucy really want? To take over Alice's life, or to create a new one of her own?Īuthor Interviews Aviator Beryl Markham Soars Again In 'Paris Wife' Author's New BookĪs Alice's agoraphobia allows Lucy to insinuate herself into the couple's life, it also allows Lucy to do more once she's rattled the bricks of their shaky foundation. Mangan may have wanted to reference the juicy, foreign fruit as a symbol of eroticism, but 'Tangerine' also means 'a woman of Tangiers,' a native, someone who can disappear into the background. (The same reviewers have, correctly, noted Mangan's homage to the Ripley novels and to Daphne du Maurier's examinations of obsessive love.)įewer reviewers, however, have paid attention to the title. 'I thought of the past, of all the plans that we had made, and wondered how it was possible that they had been changed for this, for him, though of course I knew it wasn't as simple as that.' Lucy is obsessed with Alice, much like Tom was obsessed with Dickie Greenleaf in Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. How?Ĭhristine Mangan's vaunted new novel Tangerine (it's already in production by George Clooney, with Scarlett Johanssen as lead) has been called out by some reviewers for its tired 'evil-lesbian plot,' by which they mean the weird and sinister tension between protagonist Alice Shipley and her former Bennington College bestie, Lucy.Īlice has been living in Morocco with her feckless husband John McAllister when Lucy Mason arrives without notice, eager to pick up where their relationship ended (badly) and equally eager to insinuate herself into every aspect of Alice and John's life, which she considers false. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Tangerine Author Christine Mangan

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