Trumpet

Title: Trumpet
Author: Jackie Kay
Published: 1998 by Picador
Genre: Love, death and jazz
Pages: 278




Good things are worth waiting for. Last summer the SO and I visited London, and found this wonderful book shop, and since I was on a budget I had allowed myself only two books. I easily found 20. Trumpet was one I wanted to get, but ended up swopping it for another of Jackie Kay's books, and decided to get this one later. Well, later came, I bought the book and finally sat down to read it.


It became clear quite soon that I probably shouldn't read this one in public, as Kay's beautiful writing and the sheer amount of emotion made me tear up so many times. Trumpet is the story of famous jazz trumpeter Joss Moody, who dies after an illness, leaving behind loving wife and grown-up son, and the fact that he was physically a woman. While he was alive, only Joss and his wife Millie knew. Now, the truth is all over the tabloids, and the ones left alive are left to cope with it. Some, like an old musician friend, don't think nothing of it. Some, like the son Colman, have a harder time coming to terms with the lie and the truth.


Pardon my French, but this was a fucking beautiful book. I read the first 50 or so pages before the King in Yellow kind of fell on my lap, and thought to read a bit further yesterday. Take it slow, enjoy the book and a nice Sunday afternoon. Some tea. And then the book just ended. I could have put it down, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to part with the characters, didn't want it to end. But it did, and it was so worth the wait.




One of the bits in the papers said something like, 'Millie Moody must have felt lonely and frightened. Must have felt she was sitting on a time bomb.' But of course it didn't feel like that at all. I was never lonely, seldom frightened. I am frightened and lonely now. Our secretary said to me the day before I left to come here, 'You'll get over it.' From the look in her eyes, even she didn't believe that. I miss Joss. All this fuss has made the missing worse. I am the only one who can remember him the way he wanted to be remembered.