Trumpet came out in 1998 and that is surprising. Remember 1998, y’all? In 1998 the nation was having enormous arguments about Gay/Straight Alliances in high schools, and I was sitting in the backseat of my friend’s dad’s car and staring blankly at my friend because she had just said she didn’t approve of the gay lifestyle and I had not up to that point realized that humans of my acquaintance held views of this type.
Also in 1998: Scottish poet and author Jackie Kay wrote a book called Trumpet about a non-tragic trans character. Way to go, 1998. You were better than I remember you being.
(There was a story on the car radio about students in GSA facing violence in like Kansas or someplace and I said “God that’s horrible” and my friend said “Yeah, I can’t believe they tried to have a club like that at a high school,” and then I said “What?” like twelve times because I kept thinking I must have misunderstood her.)
Joss Moody, a legendary jazz trumpet player, has just died at the start of Trumpet, and the coroner who certifies his death discovers that he has breasts and a vagina. A media frenzy ensues, engulfing Moody’s widow, Millie, and their adopted son, Colman. As Millie retreats to her holiday home to escape from the prying eyes of the press, a hurt and angry Colman falls into partnership with a journalist who wants exclusive rights to his father’s story.
Though Kay drew inspiration from Billy Tipton in the making of this story, the details of Joss’s life are her own invention. The impressive thing about the book — for 1998 or any other time — is that Kay does not insist upon uncovering answers. If the writers we encounter in this book are determined to ferret out what motivated Joss Moody to live the way he did, the writer of the book is content to let him be, simply, a person with passions and secrets and relationships. It is startling and wonderful, to read this kind of story about someone who did not fit neatly into the gender binary. Way to go, Jackie Kay.
Also, jazz is the worst.
Also, my friend completely and forever stopped supporting not supporting the gay lifestyle in 2005, when the movie of the musical Rent came out.