Customer Reviews

Trumpet

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

No one should be surprised that Jackie Kay is an awarding winning poet. The language of this book will caress and coddle many. The lyricism is amazing as characterized by the spirit of Joss Moody and his wife Millie. Kay fails short in that she is not able to make this work for the other characters. The peripheral characters lack flow and dimension. Jackie Kay has written a gem of book but it seems that she expanded her scope too wide and lost some focus.

The story in itself is not original in that Billy Tipton, a jazz musician from the Midwest lived as a man for over 50 years and married 5 times. If interested try reading Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton by Diane Wood Middlebrook.

In order to really appreciate this book, one must move beyond the carnal and the sensationalism of an interracial-married-trumpet playing transvestite. Once we move on, we come to realize that Joss Moody used the agency of love and music for transcendence. For Joss Moody this transcendence did not place him outside of reality. It enabled him to temporally amass the past, present and future as a tribute to his father, his gender, the love for his wife and son, and as a spiritual survivor of the Diaspora.

The story of Joss and his family is a phenomenal microcosm of life and love and TRUTH. Yes, truth. There was no deception on the part of Joss and Millie. The truth is Joss lived many lives as we all do. The deception is in one's own perception of who we are at any given moment. I look forward to reading more from Ms. Kay. She has a nascent talent that I am sure will place her among the great literary writers in time to come.

Once in a lifetime there comes a book/s that make/s u think..they make u feel something...pose so many questions only to show that still waters run deep and Trumpet by Jackie Kay is one such book...

I picked this book with great trepidation knowing whether or not I would like it. But as the case goes and I am glad that all my apprehensions were gone with the wind once I began this tiny jewel.

Trumpet begins on death. Joss moody the famous trumpet player has passed on leaving a legacy of great music and a terrible secret: He was a woman.

This is the crux of the book: Was this deception right or wrong? Narrated through the voices of his wife Minnie Moody ( who knew it all from the very beginning and accepted him as the way he was), their adopted son Joss Moody - who is angry at his father, the band members, his friends, and of course the media hungry journalist Sophie Stones who wishes to write a book on his life.

What struck me most about this book was: Here is a woman born in the thities..wishes to become a trumpet player in the 50's - when most women were not allowed to enter men professions', here was a woman to break and bend all rules....

Absolutely amazing!

It was not a surprise to me to read, after finishing the book, that the author is a poet. This book moved with beautiful flow, so easy to read, and engaging. As another reviewer mentioned, the book is based, loosely, on the story of Billy Tipton. "Suits Me" is interesting, but it is an incredibly slow and arduous read and, in return, does not provide much insight into Billy Tipton and his journey. However, "Trumpet" does provide insight and the reader can't help but understand all the of the characters, their struggles and their joys. This is an amazing story and beautifully written.

While I whole heartedly agree with many of the accolades afforded to Jackie Kay's novel Trumpet, I am stunned that the author gives no mention in a foreward about the true story of a jazz musician who was born a female but passed as a male, married and adopted children, refused to see a physician and for whom a band named their group after his death -- The Billy Tipton Memorial Band. Certainly Kay does a beautiful job telling the story of Joss Moody -- but much of it is lifted from the real life of Billy Tipton. For more info -- see a book titled Suits Me ( I can't remember the author's name at the moment).

Terrific book, mesmerizing. I could not put it down. Beautifully written, exciting story.
Well done, Ms Kaye!

I shan't elaborate more since the other reviewers have summed up the book so well. Suffice to say I was gripped from page one until the last. There is one particular chapter called "Music" that is akin to a long magical poem, a cry from deep within, a description of the trumpet player lost in his music. Beautiful.
A truly wonderful book.

This was a book that got heaps of praise in England and found myself wanting to see what all the chatter was about. I read the book in one sitting and found it to be a beautifully written book that could have been so much more. What the book doesn't describe is the relationship between the husband and the wife, sexually. The author wants us to believe they had a loving sexual relationship but never explored it. It was almost as if the author didn't believe it herself. Still this is a talent to watch out for if she realizes she has the gift.

Here's a contemporary novel well worth the read. The story is basically about a trumpet player whom everyone thought was a man until the truth is found out at the latter's death. The novel is divided into mainly three first person narrators: the widow of the trumpet player, his son, and a journalist who wants to ghostwrite a book on the whole thing.

I'll be honest, I never really had any interest in Jazz, or scottish culture (it's a scottish novel, written by a gay black woman, who's also scottish) but that novel makes it all mighty interesting; and the writing is great. The different voices are excellent. The whole book is like how others pictures that person who wasn't a man but was believed by all to be one. It may not seem so, but it's perfectly credible, and besides, this was inspired by a true story.

The cover of my book says it has won the 1998 Guardian Fiction Prize; pardon my ignorance but I don't know of it, just thought it might be worth mentionning here.

I really recommend it for those who wish to read something contemporary, and of quality. It's really mighty. Jackie Kay is formerly a poet, this is her first novel.

"Trumpet", Jackie Kay's Guardian Fiction Prize winning novel, transforms what could have been perfect cannon fodder for exploiters of the lurid and the sensational into a beautifully touching and emotional tale of love, betrayal, truth and quest for identity. When legendary trumpeter, Joss Moody, is certified "female" by the undertaker upon his death, his adopted son Coleman goes ballistic at his father's deception and betrayal, his widow Millicent sinks into deep mourning as she copes with her loss, while friends and colleagues express shock and disbelief but reminisce on the times when Joss revealed a softer side that could have signalled his true sex if only they had paid attention. As his wife, son and friends take turns telling the story, it becomes apparant that the truth as they perceive it is conditioned by their relationship with the famed trumpeter. Even the female journalist conspiring with Coleman's help to publish a "tell all" of the incredible life of Joss Moody reveals through her internal monologues insecurities which drive her need to forge a writer's relationship with her subject. The big question must be, despite the deception and a lifetime of seemingly living a lie as a person of the opposite sex, whether anyone who was an integral part of Joss' life was truly damaged by the revelation ? Can truth and love be obliterated by a biological detail ? What if the undertaker had faked it or Joss had somehow been laid to rest without anybody making the discovery ? Wasn't he a great musician, whether he was Joss or Josephine ? Kay's "Trumpet" made an enormous impression on me. She managed miraculously to tackle a rather strange if not unusual subject with all the emotional honesty and rectitude that the task demands without stingeing on any of the ingredients that go into the telling of a gripping and compelling tale. Once I began on it, I couldn't put it down. This is a wonderful book. Please read it.

If you've ever been in love with anyone-- whether you're straight, gay or somewhere in between, you'll identify so strongly with Millie's grief that reading the book will almost become painful. But very, very worth it-- Kay's words are precisely chosen, and evoke people and circumstances with a richness you don't find very often. *THE* best book I've read so far this year.