Celebrated trumpeter Joss Moody has died and the jazz world is in mourning. But in death, Joss can no longer guard the secret he kept all his life, and Colman, his adoring son, must confront the truth: the man whom he believed to be his father was, in fact a woman.
Trumpet
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Amazon Review
Jackie Kay's first novel is a curious and haunting story about mixed-race jazz trumpeter Joss Moody (Irish mother, black father), who turns out, on his death, to have been a woman all along. The story begins with that discovery. Thereafter it traces its consequences for his white wife Millie, who always knew, and his adopted black son Colman, who didn't. Millie rehearses the stages of her relationship with Joss, reworking an intense and abiding love and commitment in which gender is, oddly, never really an issue. Colman, by contrast, is driven, in the period immediately following his father's death, by anger and an intense feeling of betrayal, to try to "out" his father and complete his humiliation as a kind of personal expiation. As he retraces the steps of Joss's life, however, he begins gradually to change his mind. Kay has won acclaim for her poetry. Here she shows that she can harness her plangent voice to a narrative, producing writing of real maturity. Race and gender are deftly woven into its fabric, without insistence, to reveal a troubling ordinariness about fragmentation and confusions of identity in contemporary British life. --Lisa Jardine
Review
WINNER OF THE 1998 GUARDIAN FICTION PRIZE
" It has a humanity and sympathy which engaged me from start to finish. And its energy and directness made it a treat to read. . . . [Trumpet makes] us see that people apparently very unlike ourselves are in fact very much like ourselves. . . . Love is not usually such a triumphant idea in modern writing, but I think Jackie Kay makes it believably and vividly so."
-- Ian Jack, "Granta"
" Kay spins a love story, a fairy tale, and a psychological thriller out of one deep secret. She has a great gift for delving inside sundry souls, making poetry of their quirks. At its best, her prose ripples like jazz and brims with exquisite insights."
-- Andrea Ashworth, author of Once in a House on Fire
" Jackie Kay makes the unbelievable gloriously real. For a first novel this is remarkably assured, full of melody and tension. Each character is given a singing part, bouncing notes and harmonies off each other as Joss's story is teasingly, movingly revealed. ...Trumpet is a love story and a lament, beautifully told." -- Eithne Farry, "Time Out"
" A hypnotic story...about the walls between what is known and what is secret--. Spare, haunting, dreamlike." ---"Time"
" Splendid...[Kay's] imaginative leaps in story and language will remind some readers of a masterful jazz solo." ---"The San Francisco Chronicle" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
" It has a humanity and sympathy which engaged me from start to finish. And its energy and directness made it a treat to read. . . . [Trumpet makes] us see that people apparently very unlike ourselves are in fact very much like ourselves. . . . Love is not usually such a triumphant idea in modern writing, but I think Jackie Kay makes it believably and vividly so."
-- Ian Jack, "Granta"
" Kay spins a love story, a fairy tale, and a psychological thriller out of one deep secret. She has a great gift for delving inside sundry souls, making poetry of their quirks. At its best, her prose ripples like jazz and brims with exquisite insights."
-- Andrea Ashworth, author of Once in a House on Fire
" Jackie Kay makes the unbelievable gloriously real. For a first novel this is remarkably assured, full of melody and tension. Each character is given a singing part, bouncing notes and harmonies off each other as Joss's story is teasingly, movingly revealed. ...Trumpet is a love story and a lament, beautifully told." -- Eithne Farry, "Time Out"
" A hypnotic story...about the walls between what is known and what is secret--. Spare, haunting, dreamlike." ---"Time"
" Splendid...[Kay's] imaginative leaps in story and language will remind some readers of a masterful jazz solo." ---"The San Francisco Chronicle" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Written mainly as a series of interior landscapes with relatively short sketches of the outside world in London and Scotland, the work stimulates your curiosity and engages your empathy. The focus of the story, Joss Moody, deceased trumpeter, appears largely and tantalisingly through others' eyes. This approach is no mere device, it is the point: what Joss meant to those who knew and loved him/her and how his "deception", as some define her/his secret, affects their loyalty and feelings for him/her.
A certain frustration may come from not having one's curiosity fulfilled about Joss's motivation for abandoning his life as the female Josephine. I also regret not witnessing more of Joss's mother's encounter with the adopted son, Colman. The book, though, is not an argument for transvestitism nor is it an apology, nothing so crude. The book is more a celebration, a song for that intangible in the human spirit that makes us feel we have experienced a unique relationship in knowing a particular individual. We are not presented with analysis of these experiences but, rather, the author plays each character's reflections much as Joss played his music. Indeed, Joss, though dead, is still very much alive not only in his recordings but also within those he loved. We too experience him/her in the sublime "Music" chapter where the soul of the novel and the soul of Joss meet in a poetic nexus.
By the end of the book, we have come to know Joss and his/her affect on people but s/he remains an enigma. The newspaper hack attempting to ghost-write Colman's "official biography" of Joss would doubtless produce a conclusive character portrait confidently separating appearance from reality and yet be a million miles from the truth. Kay instead leaves all judgements up to the reader who through her sensitive rendering feel not an impulse to judge but rather a reason to grieve.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
A rare book of great emotional strength which left me sobbing quietly at the end. It combines a tribute to the intense comforts of a passionate and long lasting marriage with an agonising search for identity and belonging and finally resolves its narrative movingly and resonantly. Every description rings true, every character lives, every episode has meaning - nothing is spare. A really wonderful book.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By J. Hedley
Format:Paperback
The extraordinary life of a jazz trumpeter, Joss (born Josephine) Moody, who lived and played as a man. The story is told by a series of voices after Joss's death, including 'his' grieving widow and angry foster-son. Jackie Kay brings out the black humour of gender confusion, while gently suggesting that genius and love are just that, no matter how bizarre the circumstances. Beautifully written (the author is a poet) - but never precious.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
I had to buy this for my English course and ended up loving it!
This is a fantastic book, originally my university course dictated I read it, but I was soon hooked. Read more
Published 18 hours ago by Pen Name
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb
A wonderful, uplifting book with a brilliant twist in the tale. Made you consider other people from a totally different angle. Fantastic.
Published 1 month ago by jan
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intruiging and enigmatic book
A tenderly written novel dealing sensitively and coyely with a little explored gender issue. It was always kind and focussed on the person rather than the gender identity issue.
Published 1 month ago by artwork
4.0 out of 5 stars
thought provoking.
I haven't finished this yet... but well written so far, and the story is written from different character perspectives. Raw emotions & gender issues .....
Published 1 month ago by S. Herne
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved this book
This is a great read. the transgender details are accurate and sensitively approached. Very believable. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Tea Lady
4.0 out of 5 stars
A tale of love, identity and music...
Trumpet begins with quite a shock. A woman is hiding away from journalists who want to know more about the death of her husband, Joss Moody. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Fiction_Fan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Novel
A fantastic Novel by Jackie Kay. Just couldnt put it down. A fab insight into the Jazz era and how times have changed regarding sexuality. I would highly recomend this book.
Published 12 months ago by Debbie Lovett
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book which covers many themes!
I had to buy this book as i studied English Lit and the reading and commenting of the themes and motivation of the author to white this story was part of the syllabus, but i really... Read more
Published 15 months ago by nat
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic
I took this book to read by the pool on my honeymoon and ended up absolutely glued to it and is floods of tears behind my sunglasses. Read more
Published 16 months ago by A. Student
5.0 out of 5 stars
Won prizes for a reason.
Had to study this for English A level, very enjoyable read if it weren't for the language molly coddling you with short sentences in places that are awkward to read aloud. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Heaf
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