Trumpet is the debut (and so far the only) novel of
the British poet Jackie Kay. First published in 1998, Trumpet won the Guardian
Fiction Prize.
The protagonist of Trumpet
is a renowned jazz musician called Joss Moody. Moody is a famous trumpet player. Joss Moody around whom the novel revolves never speaks directly
to the reader because he is dead. As the novel starts the reader learns that Moody has died, leaving behind his widow, Millie, and his adopted son, Colman. The
world of Jazz music has lost one of its great exponents. However, this is
not the only reason why Moody, in his death, is dominating the headlines in the
tabloids. In his death Joss Moody can no longer keep the secret he lived
with all his life. Moody, who lived life as a man, and was married and adopted a son, was born a woman. Anatomically, he remained a woman all his/her life. The discovery of Moody’s true gender attracts
lots of unwarranted media attention, complete with prurient speculations about
the sex lives (and sexual orientations) of Moody and 'his widow'.
Trumpet tells Joss Moody's story through different voices: the funeral director (who
discovers the true sex of the famous trumpeter); the drummer in Moody's band; an avaricious journalist who is trying to make a name for
herself out of the drama of Moody’s life with the sensitivity of an elephant trampling the jungle in Jumanji; Millie, Moody’s 'wife', who knew all along that her 'husband' was a woman; and last, but
not the least, his son Coleman, who doesn’t know that the man he thought was
his father was in fact a woman.
The premise of Trumpet
is not as preposterous as it might seem. The novel is based on the life of a
real life American Jazz musician called Billie Tipton. Tipton was born a
woman—Dorothy Tipton. A piano player, Tipton started her musical career in the
1930s. She used to appear as a man during public performance, but, by 1940,
began living as a man even in private. Tipton went on to have a series of
relationships with women, some of which lasted for several years. Tipton
adopted three sons in the 1960s when 'he' was in a relationship with a woman,
and, upon separating from her, carried on living with his three sons who remained blissfully unaware that their father was in fact a woman even
when they reached adolescence. The sons became aware of their father’s anatomy
when Tipton, at the age of 74 became ill (he had resisted for months going to
the hospital) and paramedics were called. Tipton never explained or left behind
any note explaining why he chose to live the way he did. It has been speculated
that the scene of Jazz music was dominated by men in the 1930s when Tipton
started out, and s/he probably felt it necessary to take on the persona of a
man in order to have a career. Some of his professional colleagues felt that
Dorothy Tipton was a lesbian because during the years when she was appearing as
a man only during public performances, she lived with another woman.
Trumpet makes no attempt to explain the fictional Joss
Moody’s sexuality. Was Moody a lesbian? A transvestite? A transsexual? Kay is
not interested in spelling this out for the readers. Just as Dorothy Tipton,
the real life inspiration of Joss Moody, never explained what motivated her to
live the most whole life as a man, Trumpet leaves it for the reader to
speculate why Moody lived his life the way he did. What Kay is interested in
are identity and love, and she explores these themes with great subtlety. On
the one hand we have the dead Joss Moody who, for all outward appearances, had
no conflict in his mind about his identity, which, to most, would seem more
complicated than Christopher Nolan’s Inception; on the other hand there
is Moody’s adopted son, Coleman, whose sexual identity is straightforward enough,
but who has struggled all his life to come out of the shadow of his famous
father, and, not having any musical (or any other skills) to speak of, is
drifting in search of an identity. The revelation of his father’s gender
triggers a riot of emotions in Coleman’s mind compared to which the Bolshevik
revolution was a tea party, and makes his struggle for identity more
convoluted. Coleman’s struggle to accept his father for what he was is a
powerful strand of the novel. Millie, Moody’s widow, is also grappling with the
issue of identity, though there is no confusion in her mind. Millie, who has
always known that Joss was a woman, views herself as straight, and does not
accept the media’s depiction of her as a lesbian. To Millie it matters not a
jot that Joss Moody was anatomically a woman. She loved Joss for what he was. Although
not explicitly stated, it is implied that Joss Moody considered himself a man,
and that is good enough for Millie. The sections describing the relationship
between Joss and Millie are very moving without ever descending into the
maudlin. The ending has a twist but it’s not gimmicky.
Trumpet, at its heart, is a love story; but it is also
a psychological thriller and an exposition of identity. Jackie Kay is a
renowned poet and has an extraordinary feel for language. She knows how to
select, what to focus on, how make her characters sparkle and how to make her
scenes vivid. The different voices of the novel are handled with great aplomb
and are utterly convincing. All—even the slightly stereotypical, unlikeable
journalist—are treated with compassion. Not an easy thing to pull off, one
would have thought, but Kay manages it.
Trumpet is a wonderful novel. Humane, poignant, wise
and insightful, it’s one of those novels that give you a rich sense of
satisfaction when you reach the last page.
