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Title: Trumpet by Jackie Kay ISBN: 0-375-70463-9 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 11 July, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (22 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: the REAL Joss Moody
Comment: While I whole heartedly agree with many of the accolades afforded to Jackie Kay's novel Trumpet, I am stunned that the author gives no mention in a foreward about the true story of a jazz musician who was born a female but passed as a male, married and adopted children, refused to see a physician and for whom a band named their group after his death -- The Billy Tipton Memorial Band. Certainly Kay does a beautiful job telling the story of Joss Moody -- but much of it is lifted from the real life of Billy Tipton. For more info -- see a book titled Suits Me ( I can't remember the author's name at the moment).
Rating: 3
Summary: Great concept, solid writing, poor delivery
Comment: It seems to have taken me forever to finish this book. I couldn't seem to figure out why it dragged. The writing was clear, crisp, at times even on the verge of excellence, so why the struggle with finishing the 278 pages of the novel? Because the story reads like multiple books, all unfinished. No sooner than I'd start to get engaged in the story, it would shift focus, employing new characters and new devices - first person, third person, dream sequence - to expose the story of its main (or at least most talked about) character, Joss Moody.
Kay would have better served this reader by choosing a voice and telling the story through it. Although the writer's literary tool box is full of helpful gadgets to aide in the telling of stories, it need not be necessary to use them all when writing your book. Kay succeeds in creating a jagged rendering of Joss Moody's story - that of a famous trumpet player upon whose death is discovered to have been a woman. Joss lived his life as a man, married, adopted a son, excelled at his passion, and died. Coleman, Joss's son, is devastated by the discovery of his father's secret and becomes pry to Sophie, a writer who is looking forward to a substantial financial windfall from the publication of Moody's story. Dispersed throughout the book are various renderings and reflections on the life and experiences with Joss Moody - the man. Kay jumps from each version or perspective using everything but grace, leaving a series of untold stories, each of which could form the basis of its own novel. Great concept, solid writing, poor delivery.
Rating: 4
Summary: Satisfying Conclusion Makes it Worthwhile
Comment: I'm surprised to have given this book 4 stars. I started out struggling to finish keep up the reading for much of it. I'd done a little research on the author, and it seemed this work was going to end up being some gender-issue, multicultural, diversity advocacy. Which it is. But the author, for me, managed to transcend these themes in the overall plot. The ending is what saved the book.
The main character Joss Moody is a famous jazz musician. He married and adopted a child and lived a long successful life. But he had a secret - Joss was really a woman. The world is shocked upon Joss' death, to find out this secret. Joss' wife Millie and their adopted son Colman must deal with the public's morbid fascination. Millie experiences resentment and fear; she feels there was nothing wrong with her marriage, her spouse. But the adopted son Colman, now in his 30s, feels rage and shame when he discovers, along with the public, that his father was really a woman. He seeks "revenge" by collaborating with a tabloid author on a tell-all book. Millie is enraged by her son's duplicity. In the end, all appears to be well, but it's a long painful path.
I had a few questions about the plot, things that didn't seem to make sense, as I do with most books. And, as with most books, by the end these "inconsistencies" become reasonable "suspensions of disbelief." For instance, in addition to "revenge", Colman's main motivation in working on the tell-all book is money. He needs it. But Joss was wealthy. Joss loved his son, so where is the inheritence? Eventually I figured maybe Joss left it all to his wife, or knew his son was terrible with money and so didn't want to leave him any, or that Joss' assets were jointly held with his wife, etc. And how could Millie stay on with Joss after she found out he was a man? Unconditional love I figured, which is a big theme of the story.
So after a long, hard slog, the conclusion really saved the book for me. Kay manages to pull off the "love is all that matters" theme in a believable way. All the pain and suffering that Millie and Colman experience upon Joss' death, these issues sort themselves out by the end, and the author does this in a convincing and satisfying way.
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Title: Blackden (Norton Paperback) by Duncan McLean ISBN: 039331975X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Foreign Parts by Janice Galloway ISBN: 1564780821 Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Morvern Callar by Alan Warner ISBN: 038548741X Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Original Bliss by A. L. Kennedy ISBN: 0375702784 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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