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.
