Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Trumpet

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Trumpet is undoubtedly good literature, but is it a good trans story? I would argue it maybe… isn’t a trans story at all. It’s a story about a trans person who is completely decentered from their own story, their own narrative. It’s about the stories that cis people tel themselves and others about this trans person, this man, after he’s gone. I raise an eyebrow at Jackie Kay’s claim of little research—I wonder, did she speak to trans people, trans men, while writing this book? I know it was the nineties—and I don’t discredit how groundbreaking this book was. Doubly, triply so for a Black lesbian writer writing the story of a Black trans man. I understand not wanting to write Joss’ perspective (almost at all)—it’s not the story at hand here, and it’s not Jackie’s voice. But that does leave me wanting—I envision more queer stories and queer futures in literature, more trans voices and writers and lives. Trans stories with trans people front and center, alive and complicated and full of life.

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

The trumpet player at the heart of Trumpet is Joss Moody, a Black jazz musician. The novel opens with his wife Millie grieving his death. And what a devastating, poignant bittersweet chapter that was. I don’t think I’ve read grief written better or more lovingly, nor felt it more viscerally. Unfortunately Millie is not able to grieve in peace because Joss’s death has revealed a secret that shocked many (but not Millie who has long known about it ) and a tabloid journalist is determined to write a tell-all expose. Joss and Millie’s son Colman, shocked by the revelation and upset by its nature, is assisting her. I love that we heard from multiple voices during the novel. Each revealed more about Joss as a person and traversed different attitudes to his secret, attitudes that revealed far more about them than they did about Joss. The characterisation was excellent. Both Colman’s story arc and the final chapter, a letter written by Joss, were satisfying. This is a story about the love between a man and his wife, and between father and son. It’s the story of a man who chose to live life his authentically, despite some costs. Its exploration of issues surrounding tabloid journalism and the public’s obsession with the private lives of public figures was thought provoking and timely.

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