Hares and Hyenas

Second Saturday Book Club.

Facilitated by Jess Mills, the book club will be reading a new queer novel each second Saturday of the month.

Welcome to the May meeting of the Second Saturday Book Club at Hares & Hyenas.

Saturday, May 13 – 1100am-1230pm

May Book: Trumpet, by Jackie Kay
Content: Trans Male fiction, based on a true story

Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize.

When the love of your life dies, the problem is not that some part of you dies too, which it does, but that some part of you is still alive- Jackie Kay.

The death of legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody exposes an extraordinary secret. Unbeknown to all but his wife Millie, Joss was assigned female at birth, but was living as a man. The discovery is most devastating for their adopted son, Colman, whose bewildered fury brings the press to the doorstep and sends his grieving mother to the sanctuary of a remote Scottish village. Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize, Trumpet is a starkly beautiful modern classic about the lengths to which people will go for love. It is a moving story of a shared life founded on an intricate lie, of loving deception and lasting devotion, and of the intimate workings of the human heart.

From the angry and disbelieving voice of the son Colman, whose hurt and alienation can only find expression through the cliche’s of tabloid expose, to Millie’s personal elegy for her husband, Jackie Kay’s ear for the poetry as well as for the rudeness of everyday speech is as powerful as ever (Times Literary Supplement)

Kay carefully registers the technical difficulties of transgendered life (breast binding, marriage certificates, death certificates) without sensationalizing them, and beautifully evokes both Millie’s and Colman’s grief. She leaves us with a broad landscape of sweet tolerance and familial love, wondering how it felt to be Joss Moody (New York Times Book Review).

Purchase the book for $20 from Hares & Hyenas and join us for a great discussion on May 13.

To register your interest, reply that you are coming to this event via facebook, contact Hares & Hyenas on 9495 6589, or Jess Mills on 0410 913 631.