Trumpet

By: Jackie Kay

Narrated by: Cathleen McCarron

Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

When the love of your life dies, the problem is not that some part of you dies too, which it does, but that some part of you is still alive.

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.

Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize, Trumpet by Jackie Kay is a starkly beautiful modern classic about the lengths to which people will go for love. It 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.

©1998 Jackie Kay (P)2012 W F Howes Ltd

awesome

this was amazing. timely. heart-wrenching and heart-warming. So well-narrated. so intense and well-written/read.
I loved the narrator, who brought it to life.

Awesomely Written and Narrated

I love this book, I love the story, and I love the voice performance. Very touching. Please listen.

Amazing characterization and performance to match

The narrator was great, the different voices made it easy to distinguish between characters and sections. There is one section in particular where the text flows from the son speaking as a 30 something young man to his memories as a child and the narrator's change in voice provides as seamless and smooth a transition as the text.

Beautiful and True

A beautiful meditation on what it's like to change identities, and to be true to yourself; about grief and forgiveness; about the funny problems of conventional life, and unconventional life too. It rings true.

Amazing narration, by an actor so skilled at making not just different accents but different people come alive in the recording.

One of the best stories I have ever listened to

Haunting. Beautiful. Grieving. Jackie Kay offers a master class and Cathleen McCarron embodies each character to perfection. A must read.

Fantastic Story and Narration

Would you listen to Trumpet again? Why?

I would definitely listen again. I was easily able to connect with the main characters and the narrator did a fantastic job of bringing them to life.

What about Cathleen McCarron’s performance did you like?

There were times when her narration felt so real and so raw that it brought me to tears.

Who was the most memorable character of Trumpet and why?

I loved Millie. I truly felt like she was sharing her love, her grief, and her memories with me. My heart broke for her at times.

Skilled production of a timely story

Wish I had known about this trans-affirming book when I was growing up! What a compelling telling of a story. I hope to read many more of Kay’s works. McCarron’s reading is of the highest quality.

Perpetuated ignorance of gender dysphoria

This book made me angry. While the writer clearly is gifted in creating atmosphere and using language to set the tone, the characters who were ignorant and misunderstood the trauma of gender dysphoria seemed to be the loudest. Love was a key theme, that is true, but hatred and ignorance were so descriptive it hurt to hear it expressed with such vileness. I feel this book normalizes sensationalizing the heartbreak of gender dysphoria. There was no education, no edification in the progress of the characters coming to understand. The character of Sophie, the journalist spoke too loudly. There were no consequences for her level of hatred and selfishness. The character of Coleman, the son, did progress but so much of the book was given to his disdain, with overuse of the 'f' word that it was like being battered by the language. At the conclusion of this book, I am left feeling like the author has no compassion for those who live a life knowing they were born in the wrong body.