Episode 43: Hua Hsu

In the eyes of 18-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—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 his memories—all that was left of one of his closest friends—Hua turned to writing. Stay True (Doubleday, 2022) is the book he’s been working on ever since—for over 20 years by Hua’s estimation. 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. It is also a book about friendship, race, grieving and recovery. I first came to know Hua’s work through his music writing—first in the hip-hop column he wrote for The Wire, the British experimental music magazine, and more recently, in The New Yorker, where he is a staff writer. Hua teaches at Bard College, and lives in Brooklyn. He grew up in the Bay Area, where most of the book takes place while he is an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. Hua and I have known each other loosely for many years—we have many mutual friends and are roughly the same age. I’ve always admired his work, and his beautifully written second book is a highpoint, jam-packed as it is with descriptive detail, a light and easy spare prose, and a meaningful account of an unlikely friendship.