Trumpet (novel)
Trumpet is the debut novel of Scottish writer and poet Jackie Kay. It chronicles the life and death of fictional jazz artist Joss Moody through the recollection of his family and friends and those who came in contact with him at his death. Kay stated in an interview that her novel was inspired by the life of Billy Tipton, an American jazz musician who lived with the secret of being transgender.
Plot
The novel begins just after the main character, Joss Moody, a famous jazz trumpeter, passes away. After his death, there is a revelation that his biological sex was female, causing a news rush and attracting paparazzi, leading his widow, Millie, to flee to a vacation home. The truth was unknown to anyone except Millie; the Moodys lived their life as a normal married couple with a normal house and a normal family, and not even Colman, their adopted son, knew the truth. When Joss dies and the truth is revealed, Colman's shock spills into bitterness and he seeks revenge. He vents his rage of his father's lie by uncovering Joss's life to Sophie, an eager tabloid journalist craving to write the next bestseller. After time, and a visit to Joss's mother Edith Moore, Colman eventually finds love for his father muddled in his rage. With his new-found acceptance of both his father and himself, Colman makes the decision not to follow through with the book deal. All the while, Millie deals with her grief and the scandal in private turmoil at the Moodys' vacation home, and a variety of characters whose paths have crossed with Joss's give accounts of their memories and experiences. All the characters aside from Sophie seem to either accept Joss's identity or to perceive it as irrelevant.Setting and narrative voice
Trumpet is mostly set in London in 1997. Memories of Joss's lifetime give the book's setting a 70-year time-span beginning in 1927. A majority of these memories are set in Glasgow in the 1960s, referring to locations such as The Barrowlands music venue, during the beginning of Joss and Millie's relationship and their early marriage. Although much of the story takes place in London where the Moodys lived, it jumps back and forth between the city and the Scottish seaside home to which Millie goes to escape the scandal and grieve in peace. The end of the novel is entirely set in Scotland, where Colman and Sophie go to investigate the place of Joss's birth.Trumpet is written with an intricate narration, incorporating many characters' point of view. The narration varies by chapter. Most of the story is told from the first-person perspective of Joss's wife Millie, his son Colman, and the journalist Sophie Stones. The narration often takes the form of the inner thoughts of these three characters, including visitations of their memories. Some chapters are Colman responding to Sophie Stones' interview. In addition, chapters told from a third-person omniscient narrator contribute to the story, each focusing on a different minor character, such as the funeral director or Joss's drummer.
Characters
- The central character is Joss Moody, a famous black jazz musician. The novel begins in the wake of his death. Assigned female at birth and named Josephine Moore, Joss discovers he is transgender. He becomes a famous trumpet player and devotes his life to his passion of music. Joss is portrayed as a passionate lover, strict father, energetic friend, and dedicated artist.
- Millie Moody, a white woman, is married to Joss. As a young adult, she falls in love with Joss, and her passion is strong enough to overcome the truth about his original gender. After his death, Millie is devastated. Although she outwardly handles herself with grace and composure, Millie's heart is broken. Millie is a loving, sympathetic character living out the cycles of grief under an unwanted spotlight.
- Colman Moody is the adopted son of Millie and Joss. He is of mixed race. As a child, Colman was often difficult and misbehaved. Upon his father's death, Colman, aged 30, discovers that his father was assigned female at birth, and experiences a range of emotions including confusion, anger, embarrassment, and grief, which drives him to cooperate with a journalist, Sophie Stones, in her attempt to write Joss Moody's story.
- Edith Moore is Joss Moody's mother. She enters the novel only at the end. We see her as she is growing old in a retirement home.
Themes
Identity
The underlying theme of the novel is identity. It explores many dualities such as male/female, black/white, and famous/non-famous. Joss's experienced are shaped by his hidden transgender identity, as well as his identity as a black English man. The story explores the importance of identity, and other themes include familial relations, specifically between father and son, secrecy, insecurity, respect, and fame.Family relationships
Another theme in the novel is familial relationships, especially the relationship between Joss and Colman. After his father's death, Colman reflects on his childhood and how his relationship with his dad has changed over time. His relationship with his father had tension due to the fact that Colman wasn't as successful as his father. This tension increased upon Joss’s death and Colman discovering that his father was a trans man. The novel ends with Colman reading a letter his dad left for him, which talks about his own father.Race and gender
The novel also explores issues around race and gender. Both Joss and Colman give insight into the experiences of black people in Britain and Scotland. Joss not only had to learn how to navigate the world as a biracial Black person, but also as a transgender man. He had to learn how to pass as a man, and went to great lengths to ensure that no one found out he was trans beside Milli.Reception
In an interview, Kay spoke about her desire to make her story read like music. Critics have acclaimed her for accomplishing this goal in a powerful and intricate narrative without melodrama. In an article for the Boston Phoenix, David Valdes Greenwood wrote that "in the hands of a less graceful writer, Jackie Kay's Trumpet would have been a polemic about gender with a dollop of race thrown in for good measure. But Kay has taken the most tabloid topic possible and produced something at once more surprising and more subtle: a rumination on the nature of love and the endurance of a family". Time magazine called it a "hypnotic story ... about the walls between what is known and what is secret..Spare, haunting, dreamlike", and the San Francisco Chronicle commented that "Kay's imaginative leaps in story and language will remind some readers of a masterful jazz solo".Matt Richardson, in his analysis of the transgender subjectivity and the use of a Jazz aesthetic in the novel, noted that "as a form that encourages the transformation of standard melodies into multiple improvised creations, jazz is useful in expanding our conceptualization of the potential for black people to recreate ourselves and our gender identities in a diasporic practice".