Stay True

A Memoir (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

By: Hua Hsu

Narrated by: Hua Hsu

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

One of the The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

New York Times Bestseller


“Quietly wrenching…To say that this book is about grief or coming-of-age doesn’t quite do it justice…This is a memoir that gathers power through accretion—all those moments and gestures that constitute experience, the bits and pieces that coalesce into a life.”
— The New York Times

“[A] luminous and tender-hearted story. . . Stay True is a nuanced and beautiful evocation of young adulthood in all its sloppy, exuberant glory.”
— The Wall Street Journal

“An evolutionary step for Asian American literature.”
— New York Magazine


In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ’zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them.

But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet.

Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends—his memories—Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he’s been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.

Touching and Well Written

This was a joy to read, having lost two friends this year. I binged this book in a day, lovey prose and reminded me of Berkeley in the 80’s/90’s, great sense of place, draws you in. Narration is perfect.
Memorable.

Bright College Days

“Stay True” is a moving memoir of college and friendship. Hua Hsu lovingly recalls his undergraduate years at Berkeley: the friends, the music, the endless conversations and even the insecurities. Much of the memoir focuses on his closest friend, Ken, and the impact of his loss. Hsu is thoughtful about the sadness and sense of displacement that follows the death of a friend. He is also thoughtful, casually, about the challenges confronting Asian-American students in California. “Stay True” rings true. However, I would have preferred a professional narrator.

Grief, immaturity, self realization, friendships

The story relates examples of all the nouns in my title. Mostly I was struck by the author’s articulate wording in his ability to describe his wrenching grief at losing someone he admired and loved. And to find humor and joy in the memories.

Compelling Writing

To imagine you’re seeing,hearing, & feeling as you might have thanks to words you could not have summoned in sentences you would not have formed in rhythms you couldn’t have sustained is what the most compelling and revealing writing offers, as this does.

Shattering and hopeful

The writer says the things you think and feel that you rarely say aloud. This book was beautifully written and was able to tap into really nuanced descriptions of thoughts and outlooks and really captured the spirit of the era it’s set in and also shine a new light on an individual’s experience of the time. I loved it.