9/50: Trumpet by Jackie Kay

[livii.livejournal.com]

Trumpet is a novel told in short stories about the aftermath of the death of Joss Moody, famous black, male trumpet player, who is revealed after dying to be a female. The story deals with issues of identity in many ways - gender and sex, obviously, but also race, adoption, immigration, even being Scottish in London, and the outsider effect of being a musician, and a famous musician's son. The story principally follows Joss' adopted, mixed race son Colman and his white widow, Millie; Colman is trying to reconcile his father's hidden identity, and Millie is, very movingly, trying to come to terms with her grief while being besieged about the revelations about Joss. There are some terrific cameos as well by other characters who interact with these events; for example, the old housekeeper and later, Edith, who are both beautifully drawn. Kay has an amazing talent for creating these very stylized characters who leap off the page at you, vividly described.

I tend to enjoy the style of storytelling used here, and write it myself, but in a way the novel does suffer from the fact the plot is all reactionary; Joss is dead when the book opens, and though he gets to narrate a chapter, for a lot of the book I felt I enjoyed the characters but we weren't really building to any plot climax, and a bit of plot is a lovely thing! However, in a way it was nice to merely enjoy the stories, and the end did come together quite satisfyingly, without ever offering any pat answers, which it couldn't, not when dealing with such deep issues. Overall, this was enjoyable and thought-provoking.

There is one thing I did want to ask of anyone who might have read the book - but this is spoilery, so I'll cut it!

At the end - do you think Colman told Edith the truth about Joss? I can't decide which way would make me happier. I found Edith an absolutely tragic figure; it's clear she loved her daughter and never could understand why her daughter had, essentially, abandoned her. She was also an interesting counterpoint to Joss, who was generally presented in a very positive light; sure, the revelations about his biological sex were shocking to Colman, but there's no real impact presented to his life lived as a man until we realize his mother was alive all along, and was left behind without being given a chance to understand why. It's sad and powerful and I wonder if it would be better if Colman told her, or if it's better not. Am interested in opinions on this!

Comments

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

Hmm, it's been awhile since I read it, and I gave away my copy, but if I remember correctly, the text was ambiguous but I got the impression that Colman did not tell Edith about Joss. It broke my heart, but I think Colman decided it would be easier on Edith to remember Joss as her daughter.

[livii.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I keep going back and forth - I see the text as interpretable both ways. I do think he probably didn't tell; "broke my heart" is exactly the way to put it! It brings up such an interesting question about the pain of knowing vs the pain of ignorance, and with such interesting characters. I just loved Edith.

[omnivorously.livejournal.com]

It's been about a year since I read Trumpet but I don't think we're meant to read Edith as a pathetic abandoned old woman. If I recall correctly we get some of Edith's POV, which paints her as an opinionated, self-sufficient person with self-respect, though perhaps lonely. Joss's childhood best friend was the one I felt sad for, actually. Joss was her childhood sweetheart and she never quite knew it. I think one thing the book demonstrated is that transgendered people aren't the only ones who suffer as a result of the gender/sex binary. Joss made such a habit of secrecy that even when he might have reconnected with his mother - in a different era, established in his career - he didn't. He was so far in the closet, out of self-defense, for all the reasons transgendered people still sometimes choose to go stealth, that even when he was dying he refused to take the risks which outing himself to a doctor would bring.

The really pathetic person was the journalist, imo. She was desperately trying to succeed according to society's (unreasonable) standards for women, judged her own success based on her thinness, her clothing, really seemed to believe that if she wore the right outfit, then some man would love her.

My *favorite* section was probably the one narrated by Joss. It was beautifully poetic for one thing. Also, it brought out the chronological aspect of gender - the little girl was still part of the man, in a way. To be clear, this is not to question Joss's gender. But before he became a man, he was a little girl - I remember finding the way Kay presented that apparent paradox very beautiful, much more eloquent and accurate than how I'm putting it. And maybe Colman not telling Edith that Joss had transitioned, that Edith in a way had never actually had a daughter at all - maybe that feeds into the chronological aspect of Joss's gender; and the geographical aspect as well since Joss went to London when he transitioned; Edinburgh was the place where he had been a girl and he *never* went back; Edinburgh is the place of his past, of his girlhood, and the people there are the people of his past as well.

Another highlight for me - and again, vague memories - was Joss's letter to his son, about how to be a black man in a predominantly racist, white society. Ok, now I really want to reread this book : )

As a white USian who - when I first read this - hadn't really thought about PoC in the UK at all, this reminded me not only that gender and race intersect, but that other countries have their own histories of race.

Incidentally, I believe Kay wrote the book after reading a brief article about an actual jazz musician who had kept his birth sex a secret from his wife and (adopted) sons, as well as everyone else. Kay read a quote from one of the man's sons: "He'll always be dad to me" or something like that, got the idea to write a novel, did very little research, and just ran with it. Made it about a black man in the UK, instead of a white man in the US.

A brief word about language:
a woman who had been living as a man most of his life.

It's not accurate to refer to Joss as a woman; the way you phrase it makes it sound a bit like he was a woman disguising herself as a man, which was not the case. If I were summarizing the book, I'd refer to him as a transgendered man who had kept his birth sex a secret, something along those lines. Not that Joss would have used the word trangendered to describe himself, but he wouldn't have described himself as a woman who had been living as a man, either, and "transgendered" is accurate at least from the perspective of a lot of people who are like Joss.

[livii.livejournal.com]

I never said Edith was pathetic! It's abundantly clear in the text that she has lived and is still enjoying her life, though the big regret there is the loss of her daughter, for reasons she hasn't been given a chance to understand. It's tremendously sad, to me, but doesn't make Edith some pathetic old woman! I just find it so powerful and painful to see what effect Joss' decisions - and the society he made them in - had on her. She was probably my favourite character.

You're right on the language, wasn't thinking; changed it to "who is revealed after dying to be a biological woman". I do sort of feel like the word transgendered doesn't fit here, in that I agree Joss would not have used the term himself...hopefully the edit works, let me know if you think it doesn't!

[omnivorously.livejournal.com]

Ok, misunderstanding : ) I guess Joss's childhood best friend (who's name I don't recall, heh) just effected me more - perhaps she didn't seem as happy with the life she'd lived as Edith. Or maybe I find it easier to sympathize with an abandoned friend - I'm 24, and can't imagine being someone's parent at all.

Thank you for making the change : ) However, "biological woman" is problematic to because it implies that gender and sex are the same thing. Simply saying "female" is better - one can be female and not be a woman, and describes Joss's situation more accurately. I sometimes use the term FAAB (female-assigned at birth; or MAAB for trans women), but that's very very contemporary.

So far as the language Joss would have used, yeah, it's a tricky question deciding how to refer to people who lived before terms like transgender existed or who just didn't/don't use the terminology which is mainstream in the trans community (I have a friend like that, and I feel weird using female pronouns for her bc I suspect they're not very accurate, but, well *shrug*). If all you have is a photograph from the 1900s or whatever of a female person wearing men's clothing - what do you call her? And does that change if she's got her arm around the waist of a female in women's clothing? And so on. But we know enough about Joss for it to be clear that he was a man, and so if I don't just call him a man then I feel pretty comfortable calling him a trans man.

(I feel sort of derailing, since we're talking about trans issues in a general sense, but Joss considered himself a black man ... but I know fuckall about how being black and trans plays itself out for men.)

[livii.livejournal.com]

Heh, sorry, I realized it came across kinda angry - I was just startled, because I loved Edith and never though her pathetic at all! :)

I am so out of it today; I changed it to female. I'm really big on sex/gender and for some reason still picked woman over female...man. Anyway, not derailing at all, it's an interesting thing to talk about!

[seabookmonger.livejournal.com]

I read this and heard Jackie speak about the book when it first came out.I believe that the story was inspired in part by that of Billy Tipton. My take on your question above was that no, Coleman never did, though I think it could be argued either way. Thanks for reminding me about this novel, as I really enjoyed it. Have seen her poetry but no other novels, even in the UK though I'd like to read more.