Stay True

Stay True: A Memoir

"Friendship consists in the desire to know, not in the desire to be known."
A Taiwanese-American coming-of-age story and a heartfelt tribute to a lost friend. "An elegant and deeply moving coming-of-age narrative."
2023 Pulitzer Prize Jury Comments 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography, American Book Critics Circle Award Winner 2022 Book of the Year by The New York Times, Time, Rolling Stone, NPR, and other major media outlets "With this book, the development of Asian American literature has reached new heights." New York Magazine
“Deep emotions surged as I read this book.” —Tingting Tang, winner of the American Literature Award for Outstanding Contribution. “The writing is at its most expansive, rigorous, forgiving, and gentle.” —Ouhang Wang, winner of the Eliot Medal. “In that decade, time flew by.
You are so anxious to do something that when something happens, you forget to remember it.
A day seems like an eternity, a year like a geological age.
We stay up late, letting our minds run wild with ideas about everything, but we forget to write them down.”
At eighteen, Xu Hua enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, eager to find a like-minded university student. However, his friend, Jian, seemed to come from a different world: the son of Taiwanese immigrants, while Jian came from a family of Japanese descent that had immigrated to the United States for generations. He enjoyed spending time alone making zines and hanging out at record stores, while Jian loved swing dancing and being in a fraternity. Despite their stark contrasts, countless nights spent smoking and chatting, driving around listening to music, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions about Asian identity in class made them best friends.
However, the day after a party, Ah Jian died in an unexpected carjacking. Their conversation, interrupted the previous night, remained unfinished that night on Ah Jian's balcony. "The only thing that continues to move forward is on paper, in the accumulation of words and sentences, in the assembly of paragraphs onto pages," Xu Hua wrote in a blank notebook he had purchased after Ah Jian's death. But will there ever be a day when the pages of a book run out, when memory's capacity is insufficient...
"If a person loves friendship, he must also love the future." - Derrida. How can one leave you without abandoning you? For Xu Hua, writing offers another way to live in the present. He omits the texture and slowness of the present, translating it into language. In his diary, he repeatedly examines the impact of events, both large and small, that occurred between them and each other's lives, continuing the conversations that had already begun but never ended with Ah Jian. And so, writing like this for twenty years - Xu Hua meticulously crafting a way to explain himself, exploring the feelings of searching for one's own identity, navigating the complexities of parent-child relationships, discovering new interests, and even developing friendships in the process.
“Some things push you away from home, while others pull you far away.
Opportunities dry up in one place and spring up in another.
You migrate, following the promise of a seemingly better future.”
In this book, Hsu Hua writes linearly over time, unspooling his own journey of growth and search for belonging. Born in Illinois in 1977, the second generation of Taiwanese immigrants, he later moved with his parents to the California Bay Area. Life for his family of three changed after Hsu started high school. Taiwan's semiconductor industry boomed, prompting his father to transfer back to Taiwan for work, separating him from his family, who relied on two fax machines to maintain their connection.
Most of the time, the father would help his son with his math homework via fax, but sometimes, his replies would include topics he thought his son would be interested in, as well as life lessons. "Life is a dilemma. You have to find meaning while accepting reality. How to deal with this conflict is a challenge for each of us. What do you think?"
That year, Nirvana's lead singer, Christopher Cobain, committed suicide, and his father sent words of comfort and guidance via a fax machine.
Is accepting all life's ups and downs a form of nourishment? Recalling his youth, Xu Hua simply wanted to be unique. He dabbled in obscure academic theories, listened to alternative music, and created zine-style publications, all in an effort to carve out a new self-image and cultivate a new personality. While studying at the University of California, Berkeley, he thrived in an open and free-spirited academic atmosphere, amidst laughter and silliness. The death of a close friend forced him to face a complete reversal of his outlook on life and the world.
The title, "Stay True," comes from the greeting Xu Hua and Ah Jian used privately at the end of their letters, meaning "stay true"—no matter what, be true to your friends, to yourself, and to the person you might become. Revolving around a brief yet profound friendship, the book is both a difficult and poignant account of coming of age and a heartfelt confession that both mourns and celebrates friendship.
"Writing about him is like living with him again. I think it's only now, as I'm a bit older, that I've gradually come to understand that it's not just the sadness that lingers, but also the good times." - Xu Hua's award-winning record - including the best books of 2022 from major media, websites, and book reviews -
★2023 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography★2023 American Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography★2023 Carnegie Medal Nominee★New York Times Book of the Year★The New Yorker Book of the Year★The Washington Post Book of the Year★Time Magazine Book of the Year★The Atlantic Book of the Year★Vogue Book of the Year★Vanity Fair Book of the Year★Rolling Stone Book of the Year★Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year★Publishers Weekly Book of the Year★Reader's Digest Book of the Year★National Public Radio's Top Ten Books★Literary Website Lit Hub Book of the Year: "An elegant and deeply moving coming-of-age narrative that considers not only the intensity and youthful energy of friendship but also the random violence that can, in a moment, forever alter the preconceived logic of our personal narratives." —2023 Pulitzer Prize Jury Comments "Hsu Hua has masterfully crafted a revolutionary work, adding to the Asian American canon and revisiting the question of 'What Can Memoir Do?'" "For all the hard work of Xu Hua's profound reflection, his memoir is about the spirit of moving forward, even while holding the fragments of loss." — 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award Review "Reading Xu Hua's story, deep emotions washed over me: mourning, nostalgia, regret, fear, compassion... This book is vital, meticulously crafted, and healing." — Maxine Tang Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior "This book feels like the sum of a lifetime of reflection, craft, and curiosity finally coming to life, so every sentence arrives with a thoughtful, resilient, and precise force. Xu Hua takes the brutal death of a friend as her central theme and uses that void to craft a story that, despite the pain and confusion, somehow manages to embrace the world around it with a stable, generous centrifugal force. This is writing at its most expansive, rigorous, forgiving, and tender—which is to say, writing at its best."—Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Brilliant Gorgeous" "This is one of the best memoirs I've ever read. Xu Hua's narrative wastes no words, scenes, or sounds, creating a dual narrative, like the A and B sides of the most carefully orchestrated audiotape."—Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestseller Heavy: An American Memoir "With a seemingly effortless grace and clarity, Xu Hua offers a map of his soul's evolution. He shows how he forged an armor against the injustices of the world, an armor made only of holes and transparency, the only armor worth wearing. This depth of kindness and sharing is invaluable."—Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn "This book breaks my heart gently. It is a elegy, not just to a friend, but to so many others who feel lost, irreplaceable—a time of tender, leisurely intimacy, a way of being once young. Everything that makes Xu Hua's writing so unique—his penetrating presence, his rigorous sensibility, his ability to create vivid worlds out of familiarity—is brought together in this once-in-a-lifetime book."—Jia Tolentino, Trick "In this beautiful and forthright elegy for a lost friend, Xu Hua invests his heart in love, takes the time to remember, and records the details of another's life. In doing so, he shows how aesthetics can be produced both by relationship and by the horror of loss. This memoir flows quietly and deeply, without pretense, toward its readers, transforming us with its power to connect." — Sarah Schulman, Let the Record Speak "This book is rich and insightful, beautifully capturing nearly everything that matters in life. Set against the backdrop of the distinct American immigrant experience, it explores friendship, art, and family with such precision and subtlety that you won't even notice how it breaks and mends your heart."—Dinaw Mengestu, All Our Names "This book is quietly heartbreaking...To call it a book about mourning or coming of age wouldn't really be fair, and it's not just about the experience of being Asian-American, even though that theme lingers a few times. It's a memoir that builds its power through the accumulation of memories, through all the moments and gestures that shape experience, the bits and pieces that coalesce into the everyday... Xu Hua is a subtle writer, and the joyful moments she describes will creep into you, with the wry jokes seamlessly woven throughout." - The New York Times
"Xu Hua is that rare talent: a recorder and commentator who immerses herself in every subject, combining both sensibility and intellect... In this book, Xu Hua allows us to see how the stories of the author, Ajian, and their friends are carelessly thrown into the vast ocean of history, how identities are shaped by countless factors, how personalities change, and how chance and fate can become indistinguishable." - The New York Review of Books
"With this book, Asian American literature has reached a new height." - New York Magazine
"A work of clarity and tenderness... This book is a delicate and beautiful reminiscence, evoking the excesses and exuberance of early adulthood."—Wall Street Journal
"Xu Hua writes with a haunting emotional precision, questioning the possibilities of meaning in tragedy and the value of narrative, attempting to explore both simultaneously. This is a deeply thoughtful and moving book... The soul-searching, healing work, and reflections that imprint upon its pages are the pain of a lost friendship, yet also a tribute to a friendship that will linger in the reader's heart. Although Xu Hua self-deprecatingly claims that the word "friend" '...only applies to me occasionally,' the book's lingering effect is that it is itself an extraordinary and loyal act of friendship." - The Washington Post
“Not since Ann Patchett wrote about her friend Lucy Greeley in ‘Truth and Beauty’ has this book written about platonic friendship with such aching tenderness.”—The Los Angeles Times

"In his remarkable debut, Xu Hua interweaves music, art, and philosophy... He deconstructs the pain of losing a friend and powerfully captures the power of friendship and the unanswered questions raised by senseless violence. It is simultaneously a vivid snapshot of life in the 1990s, an incredible meditation on life, and a moving elegy for a lost friend." —Publishers Weekly

2024-01-04

二十張出版

304

9786269801909