Kathleen Jowitt's Reviews > Trumpet

A trans jazz trumpeter is outed after his death; this novel follows his widow and his adopted son as they come to terms with both events, and introduces various incidental characters (the undertaker, the registrar, the cleaner...) in one-off scenes. This was beautiful and harrowing, a portrait of grief made more difficult than it needed to be because of the prurient rubbernecking of strangers. (And in these days of increasing transphobia from the press, it was satisfying to see the journalist/ghostwriter presented as a thoroughly nasty piece of work.)