Trumpet

Praise

WINNER OF THE 1998 GUARDIAN FICTION PRIZE

"It has a humanity and sympathy which engaged me from start to finish. And its energy and directness made it a treat to read. . . . [Trumpet makes] us see that people apparently very unlike ourselves are in fact very much like ourselves. . . . Love is not usually such a triumphant idea in modern writing, but I think Jackie Kay makes it believably and vividly so."
— Ian Jack, Granta

"Kay spins a love story, a fairy tale, and a psychological thriller out of one deep secret. She has a great gift for delving inside sundry souls, making poetry of their quirks. At its best, her prose ripples like jazz and brims with exquisite insights."
— Andrea Ashworth, author of Once in a House on Fire

"Jackie Kay makes the unbelievable gloriously real. For a first novel this is remarkably assured, full of melody and tension. Each character is given a singing part, bouncing notes and harmonies off each other as Joss’s story is teasingly, movingly revealed. …Trumpet is a love story and a lament, beautifully told." — Eithne Farry, Time Out

"A hypnotic story…about the walls between what is known and what is secret–. Spare, haunting, dreamlike."—Time

"Splendid…[Kay’s] imaginative leaps in story and language will remind some readers of a masterful jazz solo."—The San Francisco Chronicle