A Review of Hua Hsu’s Stay True (Doubleday, 2022)

Posted by: lsobiesk

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn

Edited by Lizzy Sobiesk

I have been meaning to read Hua Hsu’s Stay True (Doubleday, 2022) for quite some time. Of course, by the point where I managed to carve out some space to do so, the memoir had received the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction! Congratulations to Hsu!! Let’s first start off with the marketing description as per usual: “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.”

 

For me, this memoir had this eerie quality only because Hsu and I are of a similar age, so the many references that occur in this work are not unfamiliar to me. I was brought back to some of my own college experiences and the tight bonds that one constructs in that period. For Hsu, the memoir is a chance for him to detail his burgeoning identifications, whether it is related to his interest in theory, music, or Asian American Studies. The big takeaway for me is that the memoir helps document a period of time when the academic pursuit of ethnic studies is not so radical. As a memoir about friendship, the work is incredibly immersive, and by the time we are well onto the memoir’s final sections, we are caught up in the immense wake of grief that subsumes Hsu and all those whose lives were touched by Ken. In this way, one of Hsu’s greatest interventions exists simply in the detailed archiving of Ken’s life, reaching across time to ensure that Ken and his zest to live in the moment will not be forgotten.

 

Buy the Book Here

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