Trumpet

A modern classic of enduring love, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize

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