Narrative Voice in Tropic of Orange

By the time I finished reading the "Monday"section of Karen Tei Yamashita's "Tropic of Orange,"I realized that the 7 sections with 7 different main characters were all told in the 3rd person except for one character: Gabriel Balboa. Gabriel's chapters are narrated in the 1st person, unlike the rest of the chapters. Because of this discrepancy, I'm beginning to see Gabriel and his association with oranges as the connection between all of the other characters. Firstly, he owns a home in Mexico that lies on the Tropic of Cancer, where he has attempted to plant different trees and plants, including an orange tree. Rafaela Cortes is the housekeeper of this home, and she is fascinated by the one pathetic orange that grows on the tree. Rafaela left her husband, Bobby, in Los Angeles and is comfortable working in Gabe's second home. Emi is Gabe's on-again/off-again girlfriend who works for a news station, and she  tells Gabe of a huge accident on the freeway involving a semi and a porsche, in which (allegedly) the driver ate a piece of orange and passed out. The entire accident was viewed (or rather, orchestrated) by Manzanar Murakami, who was on top of the Harbor Freeway overpass. Gabe had been asked by Buzzworm to interview Manzanar; Buzzworm tips off Gabe for various news stories, and at one point purchases an orange from a street vendor. Lastly, the character Arcangel has a scene where he pulls an entire cartload of oranges by himself.
The importance of the orange in Gabe's backyard seems to be the strange catalyst for all of the extreme weather changes and occurrences that happen during the summer solstice, when the sun is the highest over the Tropic of Cancer. I have only read the Monday and Tuesday sections, so I'm curious to see how Gabe's connections to the other characters (along with the recurrence of oranges) are further developed.