Trumpet

The death of legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody exposes an extraordinary secret. Unbeknown to all but his wife Millie, Joss was a woman living as a man. The discovery is most devastating for their adopted son, Colman, whose bewildered fury brings the press to the doorstep and sends his grieving mother to the sanctuary of a remote Scottish village. A novel about the lengths to which people will go for love, "Trumpet" is a moving story of a shared life founded on an intricate lie, of loving deception and lasting devotion, and of the intimate workings of the human heart. 'Jackie Kay makes the unbelievable gloriously real. "Trumpet" is a love story and a lament, beautifully told' - "Time Out". 'The voices in this tender, compassionate work were still singing in my head a couple of weeks after I'd finished it' - "Observer". 'This book is all about love ...The qualities of sympathy and tenderness in the novel make it special and make Kay a writer to respect' - "Guardian".

ISBN 0330511823   Pages 200 ISBN13 9780330511827 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 227 Publisher Pan Macmillan   Published in London Imprint Picador   Height (mm) 197 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 130 Publication date 04 Mar 2011   Spine width (mm) 20 DEWEY 823.914   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

WINNER OF THE 1998 GUARDIAN FICTION PRIZE " It has a humanity and sympathy which engaged me from start to finish. And its energy and directness made it a treat to read. . . . [Trumpet makes] us see that people apparently very unlike ourselves are in fact very much like ourselves. . . . Love is not usually such a triumphant idea in modern writing, but I think Jackie Kay makes it believably and vividly so." -- Ian Jack, "Granta" " Kay spins a love story, a fairy tale, and a psychological thriller out of one deep secret. She has a great gift for delving inside sundry souls, making poetry of their quirks. At its best, her prose ripples like jazz and brims with exquisite insights." -- Andrea Ashworth, author of Once in a House on Fire " Jackie Kay makes the unbelievable gloriously real. For a first novel this is remarkably assured, full of melody and tension. Each character is given a singing part, bouncing notes and harmonies off each other as Joss's story is teasingly, movingly revealed. ...Trumpet is a love story and a lament, beautifully told." -- Eithne Farry, "Time Out" " A hypnotic story...about the walls between what is known and what is secret--. Spare, haunting, dreamlike." ---"Time" " Splendid...[Kay's] imaginative leaps in story and language will remind some readers of a masterful jazz solo." ---"The San Francisco Chronicle"

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