51 pages • 1 hour read
Jackie KayA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In 1989, a decade prior to the release of Trumpet, the retired jazz pianist Billy Tipton collapsed in his Spokane, Washington home. When paramedics responded to the emergency phone call of Tipton’s son William, they were surprised to discover that Billy was assigned female at birth. Tipton’s well-documented story, which has served as the source of plays, books, a movie, and even an opera, is remarkable in numerous respects. Tipton kept his assigned gender secret from his bandmates, fans, three adoptive sons, and even the five women who claimed to have married him. His reason for beginning the masquerade was simple: In mid-20th Century America, women could not get work as jazz musicians.
Tipton’s success at keeping his assigned gender a secret for 50 years prompted author Jackie Kay to develop a realistic narrative about a transgender trumpet player who makes the same decision in the face of similar prejudice in Great Britain. Kay relocates this narrative to her native Scotland, makes Joss and Colman—Joss’s adoptive son—biracial, and gives Joss a lifelong, intimate marriage to his beloved Millie. She also illuminates additional forms of bias that Joss and other characters face, such as racial and same-sex relationship prejudice. As she illuminates in other writings, she’s experienced these experiences herself as a biracial, lesbian woman. Thus, in resonating with Billy Tipton, Kay creates characters who deal with various prejudices.
Kay places certain realities about 20th Century Great Britain front and center. Firstly, she wants readers to know that prejudice against Black immigrants and citizens continues unabated. Colman complains that the police have targeted him many times simply because he is Black; Millie confronts a white man on a Glasgow bus who uses a racial slur against a Black passenger. The novel’s most telling example of the residual nature of racial prejudice in Great Britain is a young housekeeper expressing shock that the white Edith Moore, Joss’s mother, married John Moore, a Black man, in the 1920s. Legality aside, Kay makes it clear that racial prejudice and violence remain prevalent in Great Britain.
Secondly, through the observations and soliloquies of several characters, Kay describes the British appetite for gossip in the 1990s. Millie must hide from the photographers and reporters who invade her neighborhood when news of Joss’s assigned gender emerges (as same-sex relationships and those involving transgender people continue to be scrutinized to this day). She discovers that reporters write half-truths and outright lies about Joss, and that they delight in publishing photos that make her appear disheveled. She realizes she cannot trust those whom she believed to be friends, in part because reporters twist their words but also because some acquaintances accept bribes to relay secrets. The novel’s purest expression of the cultural desire to hear salacious material comes from the tabloid writer Sophie, who proclaims gossip is the hallmark of Great Britain in the 90s.
Thirdly, Kay consistently depicts the British professional as someone who will accomplish what is necessary without comment or complaint. From the physician who undresses Joss before pronouncing him dead, to the death certificate registrar who must determine whether to call Joss male or female, to the undertaker who tries to prepare Colman for the sight of his deceased father, the novel’s professionals see to their duties with civility and efficiency. For Millie, this is one saving grace of British culture.
Note: American readers should note that Jackie Kay is a British writer who uses many variations in spelling, and does not use a period after the abbreviations of mister and missus. Kay also uses British terms such as the “tube,” which American readers might refer to as the London subway.