Jackie Kay
Trumpet
(Picador)

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Synopsis

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 son, must confront the truth: the man he believed to be his father was, in fact, a woman.

Biography

Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father. She was adopted by a white couple at birth and was brought up in Glasgow, studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and Stirling University where she read English.

The experience of being adopted by and growing up withing a white family inspired her first collection of poetry, The Adoption Papers (1991). The poems deal with an adopted child's search for a cultural identity and are told through three different voices: an adoptive mother, a birth mother and a daughter. The collection won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award, the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award and a commendation by the Forward Poetry Prize judges in 1992. The poems in Other Lovers (1993) explore the role and power of language, inspired and influenced by the history of Afro-Caribbean people, the story of a search for identity grounded in the experience of slavery. The collection includes a sequence of poems about the blues-singer Bessie Smith. Off Colour (1998) explores themes of sickness, health and disease through personal experience and metaphor. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies, and she has written widely for stage and television.

Her first novel, Trumpet, published in 1998, was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Inspired by the life of musician Billy Tipton, the novel tells the story of Scottish jazz trumpeter Joss Moody whose death revealed that he was, in fact, a woman. Kay develops the narrative through the voices of Moody's wife, his adopted son and a journalist from a tabloid newspaper. Her recent book, Why Don't You Stop Talking (2002), is a collection of short stories, and she has also published a novel for children, Strawgirl (2002). Her latest collection of poetry is Life Mask (2005). Jackie Kay lives in Manchester.

Contributors Testimonials

Trumpet (Picador, 1998) is on a short shelf of favourite queer books in my study, between The Passion and Tales of the City. It’s years since I read it but the characters have stayed with me: the late Joss Moody, a Scottish trumpet-player who lived as a man despite his female body; his widow, dealing with the tabloid reaction to the ‘shock revelation’ of his life story; and their son Colman, reassessing what he thought he knew about his father (and whose perspective as a young black man is all too rare in fiction). Anyone can appreciate this tale of love and loss but it has particular resonance for lesbians and transsexuals. Jackie Kay brings to it her ear for different voices, the rhythms of jazz and a poet’s cadences. Trumpet is lyrical, memorable and humane – a modern classic and deserving of the Guardian Fiction Prize which it won in 1998.

Helen Sandler

èTrumpetî is one of those books that fills me with a sense of hope, despite the fact that it deals with people in crisis. The book centres on the aftermath of the death of Joss Moody, a world-famous trumpet player. Just before his funeral, a secret is revealed that turns his life over to the scrutiny of sleazy tabloid scandal-mongers, and his widow and son are hounded for the intimate details of their family life. For me, the book is about enduring love, despite all the barriers that life can throw in our path. Itçs a book that chronicles the possibility of having and sharing a life with someone. It is beautifully written, and has a rhythmic, almost poetic feel about it. Itçs the kind of book that makes you sad to reach the last page, because youçve enjoyed the pages that went before so much. Itçs definitely a beautiful big gay read!

Michelle Reid Chief Executive George House Trust