Product Description
"Supremely humane.... Kay leaves us with a broad landscape of sweet tolerance and familial love."--The New York Times Book Review

In her starkly beautiful and wholly unexpected tale, Jackie Kay delves into the most intimate workings of the human heart and mind and offers a triumphant tale of loving deception and lasting devotion.

The death of legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody exposes an extraordinary secret, one that enrages his adopted son, Colman, leading him to collude with a tabloid journalist. Besieged by the press, his widow Millie flees to a remote Scottish village, where she seeks solace in memories of their marriage. The reminiscences of those who knew Joss Moody render a moving portrait of a shared life founded on an intricate lie, one that preserved a rare, unconditional love.
Amazon.com Review
"It was our secret. That's all it was. Lots of people have secrets, don'tthey? The world runs on secrets. What kind of place would the world bewithout them? Our secret was harmless. It did not hurt anybody."

The secret that Millicent Moody, widow of jazz great Joss Moody, refers to mayhave been harmless in life, but when Joss dies and the truth is exposed, itends up affecting more people than she ever imagined. It gives nothing awayto reveal right off that Millicent's late husband was, in fact, awoman--something Millie has known all along but that the Moodys' adoptedson, Colman, only discovers after his father's death. Titillating as thesubject matter initially seems, in Jackie Kay's capable hands Joss'sgender-bending becomes almost a side issue in a novel that is, at itsheart, concerned with the essential nature of love.

Kay tells her story from many different perspectives--the doctor who signsthe death certificate, the mortician who prepares the body, theopportunistic biographer looking to make a buck and a name for herself, themusicians who knew Joss--but it is Millicent and Colman who bear the bruntof both the pain and the responsibility for telling the tale. Millie Moodyis a tremendously sympathetic character; her love for Joss is so powerful,so right that the reader never questions the decisions this oddcouple made in life. "I didn't feel like I was living a lie," Millie tellsus. "I felt like I was living a life." Colman, on the other hand, is moredifficult to like. Though it's easy to understand his anger and confusionupon suddenly learning that the man he regarded as his father for 30 years wasactually a woman, one also has the sneaking suspicion that he wasn't aparticularly lovable guy before the revelation, either. Still, bythe end of Trumpet, there's hope for Colman, peace of mind forMillie, and a satisfying rendering of love in all its permutations forthe reader. --Alix Wilber ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

Awesome Novel!
Here's a contemporary novel well worth the read. The story is basically about a trumpet player whom everyone thought was a man until the truth is found out at the latter's death. The novel is divided into mainly three first person narrators: the widow of the trumpet player, his son, and a journalist who wants to ghostwrite a book on the whole thing.

I'll be honest, I never really had any interest in Jazz, or scottish culture (it's a scottish novel, written by a gay black woman, who's also scottish) but that novel makes it all mighty interesting; and the writing is great. The different voices are excellent. The whole book is like how others pictures that person who wasn't a man but was believed by all to be one. It may not seem so, but it's perfectly credible, and besides, this was inspired by a true story.

The cover of my book says it has won the 1998 Guardian Fiction Prize; pardon my ignorance but I don't know of it, just thought it might be worth mentionning here.

I really recommend it for those who wish to read something contemporary, and of quality. It's really mighty. Jackie Kay is formerly a poet, this is her first novel.

Heart and Soul
I read this book several years ago and enjoyed very much. I was surprised to find that the author, Jackie Kay, is mainly a poet. The premise of the book is sensationalistic but the execution of the story and its characters is precious and nuanced.

Many people want to know how Millie stayed with Joss once her true sex was revealed. However, Millie had already fallen in love with Joss regardless of his/her race. She accepted her "husband" fully(in for a penny, in for a pound). All couples have peculiar rituals unique to themselves. Gender is not mitigating factor. I don't think love transcends all, but it does make room.

The important thing is that Joss created a life for herself. The author alludes to the fact that Joss's fellow musicans were aware of her true sex and accepted her anyway.

While Joss's son Colman comes off as a petulant brat and his collusion with the tabloid journalist is repugnant, the story does allow for his redemption.

The writing is beautiful and atmospheric.

A short review
Let me just say that this novel brought me close to tears by the time I finished it. It was one of the top 3 novels I read in 2003, and one of my favorite novels of all time.

Satisfying Conclusion Makes it Worthwhile
I'm surprised to have given this book 4 stars. I started out struggling to finish keep up the reading for much of it. I'd done a little research on the author, and it seemed this work was going to end up being some gender-issue, multicultural, diversity advocacy. Which it is. But the author, for me, managed to transcend these themes in the overall plot. The ending is what saved the book.

The main character Joss Moody is a famous jazz musician. He married and adopted a child and lived a long successful life. But he had a secret - Joss was really a woman. The world is shocked upon Joss' death, to find out this secret. Joss' wife Millie and their adopted son Colman must deal with the public's morbid fascination. Millie experiences resentment and fear; she feels there was nothing wrong with her marriage, her spouse. But the adopted son Colman, now in his 30s, feels rage and shame when he discovers, along with the public, that his father was really a woman. He seeks "revenge" by collaborating with a tabloid author on a tell-all book. Millie is enraged by her son's duplicity. In the end, all appears to be well, but it's a long painful path.

I had a few questions about the plot, things that didn't seem to make sense, as I do with most books. And, as with most books, by the end these "inconsistencies" become reasonable "suspensions of disbelief." For instance, in addition to "revenge", Colman's main motivation in working on the tell-all book is money. He needs it. But Joss was wealthy. Joss loved his son, so where is the inheritence? Eventually I figured maybe Joss left it all to his wife, or knew his son was terrible with money and so didn't want to leave him any, or that Joss' assets were jointly held with his wife, etc. And how could Millie stay on with Joss after she found out he was a man? Unconditional love I figured, which is a big theme of the story.

So after a long, hard slog, the conclusion really saved the book for me. Kay manages to pull off the "love is all that matters" theme in a believable way. All the pain and suffering that Millie and Colman experience upon Joss' death, these issues sort themselves out by the end, and the author does this in a convincing and satisfying way.

Pure poetry
It was not a surprise to me to read, after finishing the book, that the author is a poet.This book moved with beautiful flow, so easy to read, and engaging.As another reviewer mentioned, the book is based, loosely, on the story of Billy Tipton."Suits Me" is interesting, but it is an incredibly slow and arduous read and, in return, does not provide much insight into Billy Tipton and his journey.However, "Trumpet" does provide insight and the reader can't help but understand all the of the characters, their struggles and their joys.This is an amazing story and beautifully written. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

thought-provoking
I thought I would write this review because I am a student at Southampton university and am currently trying to surf the net for information on Jackie Kay. As of yet I have been met with blank walls wherever I haveturned which is beginning to bug me. If anyone knows where I can find anyinfo on Jackie and The Adoption Papers maybe they could share it with me in another review. Thanks

a bravura masterpiece
magical and magnificent, here is an astounding new voice, the most important defining debut since Emily Dickinson. ... Read more

Product Description
Humor, gender, sexuality, sensuality, identity, racism, cultural difference: when do any of these things ever come together to equal poetry? When Jackie Kay is part of the equation. Darling brings together into a vibrant new book many favorite poems from her four Bloodaxe collections, The Adoption Papers, Other Lovers, Off Colour and Life Mask, as well as featuring new work, some previously uncollected poems, and some lively poetry for younger readers.Her grand, embracing spirit should be better known in the U.S.""Booklist ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Generous selection of poems from a fine Scots poet
Jackie Kay has several volumes of poetry out for adults and a few more for children.This volume selects from nearly all of them.The children's books are lots of fun, and let her show a lighter side.The adult poems are heartfelt and sometimes funny.

An unusual mind, willing to let readers have a little pleasure and fun with words, and some of the best work on adoption (from all three points of view) ever.No, I'm not a black Scot Lesbian adopted by a straight white couple.But I have just a little insight into it from someone who can also write about schoolyard stuff and even some about what the Scots think of us Sassenachs. ... Read more

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Jackie's latest collection of poetry is full of the dramatic power associated with her work, and plenty of music too. She explores the theme of identity in poems about an older generation, especially grandmothers, about the old days and the new days, and places the poet associates with these people, who live dreamlike, isolated existences, geographically, but also in the memory. Nature and the elements play a big role too: trees, the moon, the sea, fire. Jackie's style is both muscular and lyrical - one moment witty, the next melancholic, or gently surreal - and in this brilliant new collection, her poems are infused with warmth and colour: in particular, the colour RED. ... Read more

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This fierce, funny and compassionate collection explores every facet of that most overwhelming and complicated of human emotions: love. With winning directness, Jackie Kay captures her characters' greatest joy and greatest vulnerability, exposing the moments of tenderness, of shock, of bravery and of stupidity that accompany the search for love, the discovery of love and, most of all, love's loss. "Jackie Kay's characters sing from the page" - "Daily Telegraph". "So immediately engaging that it reads as though she is speaking to you at a bus stop" - Irish Times. "Jackie Kay's new book reveals her gift for capturing a voice ...at the heart of it is a faith in stories themselves: a belief that the most desolate history can be lent coherence if you tell it right" - "Times Literary Supplement". "Kay's humour and optimism are transcendent" - "Sunday Herald". ... Read more

Product Description
This is the fourth and final volume in a series begun by Isobel Murray and Bob Tait in 1984. Authors covered in previous volumes include: 1. George Mackay Brown, Jessie Kesson, Norman MacCaig, William McIlvanney, and David Toulmin. 2. Iain Banks, Bernard MacLaverty, Naomi Mitchison, Iain Crichton Smith,Alan Spence. 3. Janice Galloway, John Herdman, Robin Jenkins, Joan Lingard, Ali Smith. Extracts from Reviews for Volume 3 Murray is a fine interviewer as well as an incisive critic, academic and biographer. These aren't the kind of interviews that merely gift-wrap the books under discussion; here she's putting whole careers up for lively discussion, and unless she has read every word she wouldn't dream of pressing the tape recorder's "on" button. This is one book it would be impossible to read without wanting to re-read at least half a dozen more straight away. David Robinson, The Scotsman One woman has for several years been circumventing the tired old restrictions and distortions of the formula. Isobel Murray, Honorary Professor in Modern Scottish Literature at Aberdeen University, has been getting writers to talk, at length, on tape ...It is an utterly gripping collection.Because the writers are allowed to express themselves without being manipulated or paraphrased, their conversation evolves into real revelation. Murray's consummate skill as an interviewer. She never intrudes, or interrupts, or postures. Her deep knowledge and understanding of literature and writing act as a sort of psychological water diviner, drawing out descriptions and confidences that a less clever interrogator would never bring to the surface. The obvious luminaries of this series may be the writers, but the pole star is Murray. Most other interviewers are mere astral dust by comparison. Rosemary Goring, The Herald Simply indispensable. Hugh MacDonald,The Herald ... Read more

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From the moment when, as a little girl, she realizes that her skin is a different colour from that of her beloved mum and dad, to the tracing and finding of her birth parents, her Highland mother and Nigerian father, the journey that Jackie Kay undertakes in "Red Dust Road" is full of unexpected twists, turns and deep emotions. In a book shining with warmth, humour and compassion, she discovers that inheritance is about much more than genes: that we are shaped by songs as much as by cells, and that our internal landscapes are as important as those through which we move. Taking the reader from Glasgow to Lagos and beyond, "Red Dust Road" is revelatory, redemptive and courageous, unique in its voice and universal in its reach. It is a heart-stopping story of parents and siblings, friends and strangers, belonging and beliefs, biology and destiny, and love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"A 20-year Search For Her Biological Parents & Acknowledgement", a moving memoir by Jackie Kay.
This is a very moving story of a Scottish Poet Jackie Kay's 20-year journey/search for her biological parents & for her existence to be recognised by her biological parents titled "Red Dust Road : A Biographical Journey".Jackie Kay was adopted by a Scottish couple (John & Helen Kay) while she was a baby & brought up in Glasgow.As committed socialists,John & Helen Kay jumped at the chance they were given to adopt a mixed race child from a Nigerian student & a Scottish nurse (because of their lack of religious belief,they could only be allowed to adopt a mixed-race child).This stirring & joyful memoir starts in a rundown hotel in Nigeria where Jackie Kay meets her biological father who is a born-again Christian & faith healer : he prays & chants for two hours trying to cleanse her of his own past sin before refusing to acknowledge her existence publicly. Jackie Kay's several meetings with her biological mother was equally unsatisfactory & disappointing : she turned out to be a strange,nervous Mormon who believed adopted people ask to be adopted while they are still in their mother's womb! Growing up for Jackie Kay was not easy but John & Helen Kay were extraordinarily vigilant & supportive of their adopted child as any good parents would. Despite the vagaries of DNA,Jackie Kay grew up as a happy child & this happiness shines through this biographical journey "Red Dust Road!"This is a very touching memoir that could make a very good movie,highly recommended reading. ... Read more

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Speaking from the Margins: The Voice of the Other in the Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy and Jackie Kay studies Carol Ann Duffy and Jackie Kay as poets who identify and represent some key forms of otherness may take in the British society of the 1980s and the 1990s. Indeed, although Duffy s poetry is political and concerned with the British society of the 1980s and the 1990s, particularly with the condition of the underprivileged and people pushed to the margins of society as a result of Thatcherite policies, criticism of her poetry is more concerned with her feminist representation of gender in her work. Thus, it is important that her poetry of the 1980s and the 1990s is recognised as a poetry of the other as Duffy in this poetry gives specifically a panorama of Thatcherite Britain through the voice of the other . Similarly, this thesis analyses Jackie Kay s poetry as a poetry which is critical not only of Britain but also is particularly concerned with the condition of the racial and the sexual other in the 1980s and the 1990s Britain. Although The Adoption Papers has often been discussed and analysed mostly by focusing on the issues of identity and adoption, Severe Gale 8 , the sequel to The Adoption Papers , Other Lovers and Off Colour have not been the focus of much academic study from the aspect of the voice given to the racial and the sexual other. This research monograph studies Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy as poets representing the voice of the other in the 1980s and the 1990s British society because there is a considerable lack of criticism on this particular aspect of their poetry. The works of these two poets are part of contemporary British poetry in which as Kennedy puts it the heterogeneity of the ex-centric , the marginal and the peripheral is raided in order to revitalise and refurbish the homogeneity of the centre. Diversity is used to underwrite a new uniformity ( Mapping Value ).IntroductionOverview of the 1980s and the 1990s poetry scene in the United Kingdom given to serve as a background framework for the poetry of the two poets under study. Part I: The Voice of the Other in the Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy After a brief introduction to the social and economic background of contemporary British society and its impact on the poetry of the 1980s and the 1990s, the voice of the other in selected poems of Carol Ann Duffy from her poetry collections Standing Female Nude (1985), Selling Manhattan (1987), The Other Country (1990) and Mean Time (1993) will be studied in Chapter I. Part II: The Voice of the Other in the Poetry of Jackie Kay The poetry of Jackie Kay from The Adoption Papers (1991), Other Lovers (1993) and Off Colour (1999) are studied closely with respect to the racial and sexual other she represents concerning the voice of the other in society. ConclusionThe study of the relevantly selected poetry of Carol Ann Duffy and Jackie Kay shows that Duffy, through her use of the dramatic monologue, and Kay, by using her own experiences present the voice of the other in their poetry. Duffy gives voice to the outcasts in the society such as the criminal, the mentally ill, the rejected, the silenced, the marginalized, the unemployed and the immigrant, and Kay herself already an other as a black girl adopted and raised by a Scottish family deals with racial issues, racial and sexual otherness in contemporary Britain. Both Duffy and Kay have their poetry represent the contemporary Britain through the experience and voice of the other . Market: Modern British Poetry; Feminist Poets(UK), Cultural Studies, Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy, Poetry of Jackie Kay, the 'Other' [the marginal,the peripheral]in British Poetry, Modern Scots Poetry(Kay)Release Date: 06/01/2010 ... Read more

Product Description
Following on from Jackie Kay's award-winning first novel, Trumpet, comes a collection of superlative stories. In true Kay style these small masterpieces cover a great deal of emotional and narrative terrain, from an immaculate observation of the female physiognomy to the bewilderment of the elderly; from silent hidden love to a lifetime reminiscence of an immigrant's England, these stories are warm and tender, frightening and funny. They confirm the arrival of a major storyteller. ... Read more

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The Stone Throwers is a novel about a series of events that occurs during and immediately after the Vietnam War. The story-line involves a group of ex-military enraged over the amnesty granted the 200,000 Vietnam War Draft Evaders. They formed an assassination team and attempted to eliminate as many Draft Evaders as possible. They are pursued by a Special FBI Task Force and after a thrilling chase over two continents are finally stopped. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Stone Throwers
The book is interesting and deals with a topic that was once very political. Some of the actions of the subjects in the book too predictable. For people to have been so well trained, they do some very stupid things.

Jackie R. Kays Works
I've read both of Jackie R. Kays books. The stories get you from the beginning, and they both bring back memories. I'm proud that Jackie is a brother AP that served across the Pond. The book is well done and it can and should be enjoyed by everyone.

The Stone Thowers
Jackie Kays has done an excellent job with this work. His experience as an police officer and military man are born out in this book. It will grab your attention and keep it.This is one of those books that when you start you must go to the end non stop.The topic is as current in the continued contriversy of the Vietnam War and those that did or did not serve there. He done good.

Mark Brooks ... Read more

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These poems explore illness, sickness and health, past and present, in a dynamic and original way. They examine not only the sick body but the sick mind and sick society, racism and prejudice. It is Jackie Kay''s third collection.' ... Read more

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Kay's The Lamplighter takes us on a journey through the dark heart of slavery. Four women and one man tell the story of the fort, the slave ship, the middle passage, the life on the plantations, the growth of the British city and the industrial revolution. The Lamplighter focuses on the devastating human cost of slavery for individual people. Includes a CD of the BBC radio play. ... Read more

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In June, 2006, Picador launch "Picador Shots", a new series of pocket-sized books priced at GBP1. The "Shots" aim to promote the short story as well as the work of some Picador's greatest authors. They will be contemporarily packaged but ultimately disposable books that are the ideal literary alternative to a magazine. Jackie Kay's "Sonata" will be one of the first "Picador Shots" and comes from her new collection, "Wish I Was Here". In "Sonata", two strangers meet on a train and connect in a way that one only can when you know that you only have a few hours together, and that anything you do or say will never be held against you. One is a good listener and one is a good talker - they are the perfect combination. One tells the other about her recent loss of love whilst the other watches on, falling, secretly, in love. What will become of them? Will this journey be the sum of their relationship? ... Read more

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A great new way to start your child - or a whole classroom full of children - to learn about numeracy. In line with the Numeracy Framework initiative, this book will help to develop early mathematical awareness in young children. This collection of number poems by leading poets will further develop mathematical awareness in young children, as well as providing hours of fun. The poems address a wide range of ages and abilities. They stretch from serious, thought provoking verses to nonsense rhymes, from blank verse to lyrical, though numeracy is at the heart of the book these delightful rhymes will also help develop essential genre awareness. ... Read more

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A poetry book featuring 30 previously unpublished poems by 30 popular children's poets. This collection is published to commemorate World Book Day 2001. ... Read more

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Here she achieves great range, exploring the qualities of love in a variety of relationships rooted in the past and the present. Her poems move from the familiar - the parent, the child, the lover - to the extraordinary - including a sequence on the Blues singer Bessie Smith. The poems are poignant or bitter-sweet, sometimes joyous and often very funny. Poems about racism, deafness, domestic violence, and gay sexuality - Here is a writer - whose voice deserves to be heard in America"" - Feminist Bookstore News. ... Read more