Jackie Kay's first novel is a curious and haunting story about mixed-race jazz trumpeter Joss Moody (Irish mother, black father), who turns out, on his death, to have been a woman all along. The story begins with that discovery. Thereafter it traces its consequences for his white wife Millie, who always knew, and his adopted black son Colman, who didn't. Millie rehearses the stages of her relationship with Joss, reworking an intense and abiding love and commitment in which gender is, oddly, never really an issue. Colman, by contrast, is driven, in the period immediately following his father's death, by anger and an intense feeling of betrayal, to try to "out" his father and complete his humiliation as a kind of personal expiation. As he retraces the steps of Joss's life, however, he begins gradually to change his mind. Kay has won acclaim for her poetry. Here she shows that she can harness her plangent voice to a narrative, producing writing of real maturity. Race and gender are deftly woven into its fabric, without insistence, to reveal a troubling ordinariness about fragmentation and confusions of identity in contemporary British life. --Lisa Jardine

Intresting.., 11 Oct 2008
I had to read this, for assignment purposes as it was about being "trapped".

I believed it had an intresting plot, gets you thinking but sadly it wasn't a book that made me want to read more, and kept me on the edge.
A "man" truely a woman, is a known trumpet player in the jazz world, and the book just goes through what the adopted son, wife and others think of the situation.

If you're looking to jus read about emotions and thoughts this is the book, but if you want something to happen one after another, and keep you on your edge... this isn't the book you should read.

Beautiful, 17 Jan 2007
Trumpet collects the eperiences of fictional trumpeter Joss Moody's friends and family, after his death when it is revealed he was actually female. The most prominant characters are his loving wife, his resentful son, and the shallow journalist who, in hope of writing a scandallous best-selling book, imagines Moody and his wife as butch lesbians.
At the end of the book, although I hadn't met Joss Moody, i felt I knew him better than any of the other characters. Kay's storytelling is absolutely top-notch; this book _wants_ to be read in one sitting.
It's definately made me want to read everything else that Jackie Kay has written.

Jackie Kay, Trumpet, 27 Jul 2005
I am amased that this book isn't more well-known (I had trouble finding it in most bookstores) because it is a brilliant read. I had to read it for my women's module and it was far from a chore. I loved all the narrators of this book and particularly felt sorry for Mrs Moody and her son. It only took me 3 days to read it because it was that good. It is impossible to put down. It deals with the issues of love, death, anger and identity crisis with ease. I recommend it to everyone.

A moving, funny and occasionally horrifying novel., 21 Jan 2001
The extraordinary life of a jazz trumpeter, Joss (born Josephine) Moody, who lived and played as a man. The story is told by a series of voices after Joss's death, including 'his' grieving widow and angry foster-son. Jackie Kay brings out the black humour of gender confusion, while gently suggesting that genius and love are just that, no matter how bizarre the circumstances. Beautifully written (the author is a poet) - but never precious.

original book with gripping storyline, 31 Oct 2000
All the time I was reading this book I was thinking - why did Josephine become Joss, but then in the end when I read Joss's letter to Colman I realised that Joss revealed all...

What he was doing was reaffirming that it doesn't matter where you came from but who you are in life that counts.

A book to race through to the end.

Intresting.., 11 Oct 2008
I had to read this, for assignment purposes as it was about being "trapped".

I believed it had an intresting plot, gets you thinking but sadly it wasn't a book that made me want to read more, and kept me on the edge.
A "man" truely a woman, is a known trumpet player in the jazz world, and the book just goes through what the adopted son, wife and others think of the situation.

If you're looking to jus read about emotions and thoughts this is the book, but if you want something to happen one after another, and keep you on your edge... this isn't the book you should read.

Beautiful, 17 Jan 2007
Trumpet collects the eperiences of fictional trumpeter Joss Moody's friends and family, after his death when it is revealed he was actually female. The most prominant characters are his loving wife, his resentful son, and the shallow journalist who, in hope of writing a scandallous best-selling book, imagines Moody and his wife as butch lesbians.
At the end of the book, although I hadn't met Joss Moody, i felt I knew him better than any of the other characters. Kay's storytelling is absolutely top-notch; this book _wants_ to be read in one sitting.
It's definately made me want to read everything else that Jackie Kay has written.

Jackie Kay, Trumpet, 27 Jul 2005
I am amased that this book isn't more well-known (I had trouble finding it in most bookstores) because it is a brilliant read. I had to read it for my women's module and it was far from a chore. I loved all the narrators of this book and particularly felt sorry for Mrs Moody and her son. It only took me 3 days to read it because it was that good. It is impossible to put down. It deals with the issues of love, death, anger and identity crisis with ease. I recommend it to everyone.

A moving, funny and occasionally horrifying novel., 21 Jan 2001
The extraordinary life of a jazz trumpeter, Joss (born Josephine) Moody, who lived and played as a man. The story is told by a series of voices after Joss's death, including 'his' grieving widow and angry foster-son. Jackie Kay brings out the black humour of gender confusion, while gently suggesting that genius and love are just that, no matter how bizarre the circumstances. Beautifully written (the author is a poet) - but never precious.

original book with gripping storyline, 31 Oct 2000
All the time I was reading this book I was thinking - why did Josephine become Joss, but then in the end when I read Joss's letter to Colman I realised that Joss revealed all...

What he was doing was reaffirming that it doesn't matter where you came from but who you are in life that counts.

A book to race through to the end.

Redeeming stories, 30 Jun 2006
These stories are miracles, they are like visiting angels. Jackie Kay writes about the saddest, most awful times in relationship/friendship break-ups and their desolate aftermaths, so wonderfully that each sentence is hard to let go of. Funny, outrageous, intimate, a joy to read.

Fear, fantasy, loneliness and desire are the themes of Jackie Kay's debut collection of short stories, Why Don't You Stop Talking. Brian the fitter in "Shark! Shark!" has a hysterical fear of sharks that dominates his life. In "Big Milk" a woman's passionate jealousy of her lesbian lover's relationship with her baby forces her to revisit her own childhood. Kay has a particular talent for describing the physical manifestations of psychological troubles. In "The woman with knife and fork disorder" the breakdown of the ability to organise cutlery stands in for a woman's mental dissolution in response to sudden abandonment by her husband, while in the Kafkaesque "Shell", a stoical, isolated single mother turns slowly and painfully into a tortoise. If you want to see what happens when the stylistic resonances of Borges and Gogol meet impeccable feminism, this is it.

Many of these stories mediate an uncertain boundary between the literal and the metaphorical, and much of their pleasure and challenge lies in this ambivalence. Kay's poetic voice is well suited to the short story form. This is the Jackie Kay of The Adoption Papers and Off Colour: serious, redemptive, forcing the consumer-sanitised reader to recognise the truly impoverished, traumatised reality around them. The heart-aching "In between talking about the elephant" is a particularly brilliant example of how fantasy enables people to survive the banal inevitability of the ordinary experience of death. Kay is good on the troubled relationships between teenagers and their parents and there are a number of lighter and energetically comical stories that add levity to the otherwise twilight tone of this collection. Why Don't You Stop Talking is a memorable collection about the pathology of everyday life. Through these stories, Kay fundamentally challenges and renders suspicious the notion that there are such beings as untroubled, ordinary people.--Rachel Holmes

Intresting.., 11 Oct 2008
I had to read this, for assignment purposes as it was about being "trapped".

I believed it had an intresting plot, gets you thinking but sadly it wasn't a book that made me want to read more, and kept me on the edge.
A "man" truely a woman, is a known trumpet player in the jazz world, and the book just goes through what the adopted son, wife and others think of the situation.

If you're looking to jus read about emotions and thoughts this is the book, but if you want something to happen one after another, and keep you on your edge... this isn't the book you should read.

Beautiful, 17 Jan 2007
Trumpet collects the eperiences of fictional trumpeter Joss Moody's friends and family, after his death when it is revealed he was actually female. The most prominant characters are his loving wife, his resentful son, and the shallow journalist who, in hope of writing a scandallous best-selling book, imagines Moody and his wife as butch lesbians.
At the end of the book, although I hadn't met Joss Moody, i felt I knew him better than any of the other characters. Kay's storytelling is absolutely top-notch; this book _wants_ to be read in one sitting.
It's definately made me want to read everything else that Jackie Kay has written.

Jackie Kay, Trumpet, 27 Jul 2005
I am amased that this book isn't more well-known (I had trouble finding it in most bookstores) because it is a brilliant read. I had to read it for my women's module and it was far from a chore. I loved all the narrators of this book and particularly felt sorry for Mrs Moody and her son. It only took me 3 days to read it because it was that good. It is impossible to put down. It deals with the issues of love, death, anger and identity crisis with ease. I recommend it to everyone.

A moving, funny and occasionally horrifying novel., 21 Jan 2001
The extraordinary life of a jazz trumpeter, Joss (born Josephine) Moody, who lived and played as a man. The story is told by a series of voices after Joss's death, including 'his' grieving widow and angry foster-son. Jackie Kay brings out the black humour of gender confusion, while gently suggesting that genius and love are just that, no matter how bizarre the circumstances. Beautifully written (the author is a poet) - but never precious.

original book with gripping storyline, 31 Oct 2000
All the time I was reading this book I was thinking - why did Josephine become Joss, but then in the end when I read Joss's letter to Colman I realised that Joss revealed all...

What he was doing was reaffirming that it doesn't matter where you came from but who you are in life that counts.

A book to race through to the end.

Redeeming stories, 30 Jun 2006
These stories are miracles, they are like visiting angels. Jackie Kay writes about the saddest, most awful times in relationship/friendship break-ups and their desolate aftermaths, so wonderfully that each sentence is hard to let go of. Funny, outrageous, intimate, a joy to read.

Intensity, Isolation and Laughing out Loud, 15 Feb 2003
Why don't you stop talking. It's an instruction, not a question, taken from one of the most powerful stories in this collection. It isn't aimed at us readers, there'd be no need - the intensity of Jackie Kay's stories leaves you struggling for breath let alone speech.

From the first line, Kay's writing firmly pulls you a couple of layers down below comfort level. Most of the stories centre on private pain, impossible to show or share. Many of them feature women alone and isolated. All of them invoke strong emotions and unsettling thoughts. But they also make you laugh out loud, smile secretly, re-read phrases again and again for sheer joy. And then stay up until you've read all fourteen in an evening, knowing you want to save some, knowing you can't.

Kay is best known as a poet, and every word here is put in place with a poet's precision. Every layer of rhythm and meaning is carefully and confidently constructed, carrying you along like the subtlest of melodies.

Hard to believe this is Kay's first book of short stories and harder still to imagine what she'll do next.

Jackie Kay - Why don't you stop Talking?, 13 Jan 2003
I was bought this book for Christmas and I thouroughly enjoyed reading it, although it does not rival the classics such as Tolkien it is a brilliant book. The delightful stories portray the characters so vividly with so few words.

I was very pleased when I found out that the stories did not relate to one another as this ment I could read the book in small portions. My favourite short story is 'The Oldest Woman In Scotland', 'The Woman With Knife and Fork Disorder' is also a story that portrays 'real life' experiences. Although I have not read any of her previous works I am confident that they are all as good as this and I plan to buy 'Trumpet' as soon as possible. A recomendable read.