Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu (2022) is our NYU Reads selection for Fall 2024.
See NYU Reads for more information.
Stay True charts Hsu’s experience as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley in the mid-1990s—his days filled with mix tapes, “zines,” and making friends laugh and think. Social media and cell phones barely existed; email was so rarely used that friends checked one another’s inboxes every 2-3 weeks, as a neighborly gesture. As distant as this may seem from our current world, much of what Hsu evokes remains relevant, even pressing, to students today: from the significance that matters of taste (in music, movies, clothes) can suddenly take on, to a growing sense of one’s identity, to the important and transformative role that close friends can play in our lives. After one of his closest friends at Berkeley dies in a senseless act of violence during his junior year, Hsu comes to grips with remembering the past in a way that does justice to both the meaningful and the mundane, as well as with the grief of losing someone so young, when growing up still means growing outward. The timeless themes of Stay True will prompt NYU readers to reflect on what it means to engage with each other today—to listen and cultivate curiosity; to build bridges with those who are different from us; and to grow from our experiences and contribute what we learn to the community.
Hua Hsu is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a professor of literature at Bard College.
Stay True: A Memoir was named one of the Top 10 Books of 2022 by The New York Times, receiving the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award and 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography.
