Review of "Trumpet" by Jackie Kay

A striking book about a Jazz trumpeter, told through the eyes of the people who are affected by the trumpeter's death...The trumpeter presented as a man, but was actually a woman. His "wife" (were they legally married?) knew, and loved them all the same; but the son did not know, until told by the undertaker, who also had had no previous warning until he begins to prepare the body. The trumpeter's mother, still alive in a care home in Scotland, does not know that her daughter who left home but still writes to her, has spent a life as a man. There's a horrible tabloid reporter after a story, who seduces the son in an effort to get an inside track. 

It sounds creepy, but it's sort of beautiful. There's not a lot about trumpet playing, but it's enough of the story to be of interest to me as a trumpet aspirer.