Woodrow's Trumpet is a Tragicomedy by Tim McLaurin set in The Deep South in the 1980s. It follows Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold Woodrow Bunce as he and his black live-in girlfriend Nadean struggle to live in peace and bring a little color to their community while clashing with the new suburbanites over a chain of events that starts with Woodrow and Nadean planting a palm tree in their yard that clashes with the neighborhood decor.
Tropes in the Book:
- Family Versus Career: Mary finds out she is pregnant at the same time she gets a job offer to get back into journalism and unhappily decides to focus on her family.
- Friend to All Living Things: Woodrow is upset by people killing bugs and, while he runs around the neighborhood with his hunting dogs a lot, they never kill anything they corner and never want to. In the penultimate chapter, Woodrow's dogs do finally kill something, a domesticated cat from the subdivision, and he is deeply troubled by this.
- Hope Spot: In the final act, Woodrow reconciles with his brother Benson, who offers to buy Woodrow, Nadean, and Ellis a farm far away where they can live the way Woodrow is used to without feuding with their neighbors about it, and they are prepared to move away and start fresh. Then a fight between the suburbanites and those locals who've just been using Woodrow and Nadean as an excuse to oppose the newcomers for their own reasons leads to Nadean being accidentally shot and Woodrow fatally struck with a nightstick when he attacks the man who shot her.
- Hourglass Plot: In the first act, when Woodrow and Nadean start their interracial relationship, Woodrow's brothers and the other longtime locals are scandalized and upset while the liberal suburbanites befriend the pair. Later, the longtime locals become more tolerant of the couple while the suburbanites start clashing with them over their eccentricities (planting a palm tree in the yard, Woodrow running his hounds around, etc.).
- Papa Wolf: Jeffrey is a lot more reasonable than his wife for most of their feud with Woodrow, but finally becomes more assertive when he worries that the stress of it might make her have a miscarriage.
- Villainous Gentrification: Downplayed, as the newcomer suburbanites' desire to live in a more rural area is portrayed sympathetically and they do care about the land. However, the development of their homes does diminish the fine old woods, and their inflexibility about what fits in their neighborhood causes a lot of conflict that gets worse than anyone ever wanted.
