PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A gripping memoir on friendship grief the search for self and the
solace that can be found through art by the New Yorker staff writer Hua HsuThis book is
exquisite and excruciating and I will be thinking about it for years and years to come.”
—Rachel Kushner New York Times bestselling author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars RoomIn 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.
