Stay True
Book description
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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 Hsu
“This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be thinking about it for…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Stay True as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Hua Hsu’s book also questions linear time. His memoir considers the folded nature of time, the way the past and the future are embedded in the present.
He walks us through the story of his college friendship with Ken, beginning with his own parents, carrying through Ken’s killing, and into the years after. A meticulous portrait of Hsu, Ken, and what they meant to each other, the book’s investigation of grief overturns the notion of narrative sense.
If there is no tidy linear narrative to the story, no rising action, falling action, or denouement, how, then, do we understand loss?
From Maddie's list on creative nonfiction books to gift your grieving friend.
Stay True is a gorgeous tribute to male friendship and even more so, Asian American male friendship.
Hua retells the painful loss of his college friend Ken, who was senselessly killed in a carjacking while at Berkeley. While it’s unafraid of addressing trauma, it becomes a greater exploration of all the reasons why people are compelled to one another, why people care about each other.
The affection and complexity of their relationship is so specifically drawn, it makes you feel a part of their connection. It’s a beautiful buddy book.
From Vichet's list on to feel alive, awesome and Asian American.
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