Hua Hsu
Hsu is the aHathor and protagonist of Stay True. Hsu was born in 1977 in Urbana-Champaign to Taiwanese parents who had come to study in the United States. The family then relocated to Cupterino, California where his father worked as an engineer. When Hsu was a teenager his father returned to Taiwan to pursue career opportunities. While Hsu and his mother would visit often, Hsu nonetheless expresses a feeling of cultural disconnect between himself and his parents.
After graduating from high school, Hsu attended Berkeley University, where the majority of Stay True takes place. In their freshman year, Hsu lives with his friends from high school, Dave and Paraag, and through them Hsu meets Ken. The book then focuses on the unlikely friendship shared between Hsu and Ken, and then Hsu's mourning process after Ken is killed.
In the book, Hsu portrays himself as a culturally astute, creative, and passionate young man. He adores alternative music and spends hours producing a zine–or a hand-made magazine–with his friends. He is also politically active, participating in protests in defence of affirmative action and volunteering to help members of the Black Panther organization. Nonetheless, Hsu addresses the fact that he could be judgemental, or, as he writes, "a snob" (p. 50). He judges others based on their music and fashion sense to the extent that he almost discounts the possibility of a friendship with Ken in the first place. At the same time, Hsu makes it clear that such character traits are not uncommon in young people, and he shows how his friendship with Ken helped him grow into the person he became.
Over the course of Stay True, Hsu tracks the changes that he underwent during the time in which the book is set. He begins to drink alcohol and experiment with drugs, he starts going to raves, and has two serious girlfriends: Mira and Joie. In a sense, he looks to Ken for guidance and support during this process. On the night that Ken is killed, Hsu is attending a party at Ken's apartment and intends to ask him for advice about his girlfriend. Before they can have the conversation, however, they are interrupted, and Hsu leaves before they are able to talk. When he discovers that Ken has been killed, Hsu feels an immense sense of guilt for leaving the party. The remainder of the book details Hsu's process of grieving for Ken, during which time he travels to Boston to complete a PhD at Harvard.
Hsu portrays himself in a balanced, relatable, and honest manner. Even if one has had a very different life from Hsu, his humorous and accepting take on his younger self gives the memoir a universal feel to which many will likely relate.
Ken
If Hsu is the protagonist of Stay True, then it would be fair to say that Ken is the narrative focus of the book. Indeed, just as the book is a memoir of Hsu's young life, it is also a memorial for Ken. Throughout the book, Hsu portrays Ken with immense admiration and respect. Upon his first meeting with Ken, Hsu describes him as being "flagrantly handsome" and charismatic (p. 43). He is a member of a campus fraternity and initially dreams of becoming an architect. To support himself through college, he has “after-school job selling children’s shoes at a department store" (p. 43).
Ken grew up in a Japanese-American family outside of San Diego. As Hsu writes, "high school had been a dream for Ken, and there were few signs that college would be any different” (p. 43). He is optimistic and open-minded and is able to foster meaningful connections with the people around him. Much to Hsu's distaste, Ken likes popular music like Pearl Jam and the Dave Matthews Band and "dressed well, in a ruggedly generic way” (p. 49).
Despite their differences, Hsu and Ken become close friends. In a way, they complement each other well: Hsu introduces Ken to new music and films, and Ken offers Hsu advice about being an adult. Tragically, however, Ken's life is cut short when he is killed in a carjacking in the summer of his junior year at Berkeley. In an act of senseless violence, he was cornered by three people who take his credit cards, force him into the trunk of his car, and later shoot him in the head. The incredible grief and trauma of this event was central to Hsu's decision to write Stay True.
Hsu's Father
As Hsu writes near the beginning of the book, “my father left Taiwan for the United States in 1965, when he was twenty-one, and he’d be nearly twice as old before he set foot there again" (p. 17). After graduating with an engineering degree in Taiwan, Hsu's father left for the United States to undergo more schooling. He first attended a school in Massachusetts, then transferred to Columbia University in New York, before arriving at the University of Illinois where he met Hsu's mother and got married. During this time, Hsu writes that he “acquired various characteristics that might have marked him as an American” (p. 17). He participates in political protests and comes to enjoy rock music, but nonetheless feels a sense of distance from American culture.
Initially wanting to become a professor, Hsu's father was unable to find a job and eventually found work as an engineer in Texas before moving the family to California when Hsu was a child. Hsu describes the process of cultural assimilation that his father underwent, writing “my father toyed with anglicizing his name and asked to be called Eric, though he soon realized that assimilation of that order didn’t suit him” (p. 24). Hsu's father, however, is never able to feel entirely at home in the United States and returns to Taiwan when Hsu is a teenager where "a job as an executive awaited him" (p. 26).
Despite the geographical distance between them, Hsu describes having a relatively close relationship with his father. They communicate frequently through a fax machine and Hsu's father offers encouragement and guidance to his son. In one touching letter he writes, “we’ll support you whatever you choose (most time! Ha!). Don’t feel bad if sometimes we are too nervous. We just hope to give you all our guidance and help to make your decisions simpler” (p. 34). Above all, Hsu's father is loving and supportive.
Hsu's Mother
Hsu's mother is depicted in less detail than Hsu's father. Nonetheless, he reveals that “she arrived in the United States in 1971" to study Public Health at Michigan State University (p. 18). Before she began her studies, however, she discovered that she had been accepted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she transferred and met Hsu's father. Traveling for her husband's job, Hsu describes the sense of isolation felt by his mother. Still, Hsu writes that he spent a lot of time with his mother growing up and that "she watched whatever weird movies I brought back from the library, and she taught me how to shave" (p. 29). After Hsu's father moved back to Taiwan, Hsu writes, "my mother spent a lot of the 1990s on airplanes” (p. 27).
While Hsu's father plays a much larger role in the book, his mother is nonetheless portrayed as a devoted and caring parent.
Sammi
Sammi is a friend that Hsu meets at Berkeley. He describes her as being “an artsy, alternative girl who lived on the fifth floor” whom Hsu admires for he fashion sense (p. 54). Hsu also writes that she “was from New York, not Northern or Southern California, which qualified her as the coolest person I’d met thus far at Berkeley" (p. 66). She helps Hsu make his zines and he respects her taste in music. Later, Ken gets her a job at Nordstrom selling children's shoes with him. After Ken is killed, Sammi is the one who informs Hsu and they mourn his death with one another. After graduating from Berkeley she moves back to New York.
Anthony
Hsu meets Anthony through Paraag and Dave. Anthony is from the Bay Area and like Paraag and Dave he studies business. In their sophomore year, Hsu and Anthony live together, and Anthony is at the rave with Hsu and Mira on the night that Ken is killed.
Eddy
Eddy is an inmate at the San Quentin Prison and Hsu meets him while working as a tutor. Eddy is Chinese-American and Hsu describes him as having “sharp cheekbones and lie-detector eyes, the stocky build of someone who spent a lot of his free time doing push-ups” (p. 157). Hsu does not know exactly why Eddy is incarcerated but knows that he was involved in organized crime. Over time, Eddy and Hsu develop a connection and Hsu tells him about Ken's murder. Eddy responds by saying that “he and the other men in the college program were, on the whole, penitent about their pasts” (p. 160). When Hsu finishes his time working at the prison, Eddy gifts him a bracelet that he has made.
Michael Rogin
Michael Rogin was a professor of political science who taught at Berkeley until his death in 2001. In Stay True, Rogin advises Hsu's undergraduate thesis. Hsu writes that he imagined Rogin “was what New York was like, nervously pacing, frenetically scribbling out a new cosmos across the chalkboard, dust everywhere, enthusiastically explaining what Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville had to do with who we were as Americans" (p. 146). Hsu spends many hours talking with Rogin, until, as Hsu writes, “he grew tired of my visiting his office to spitball thesis ideas” (p. 147).
Paraag
Paraag is Hsu's friend from high school and later his roommate during their freshman year at Berkeley. Like Dave, Paraag majors in Business and enjoys playing basketball in his free time. Later, Paraag lives with Sean and has an internship with a sports agency in San Francisco. Both Dave and Paraag are close friends with Hsu and Ken, and together with Hsu they mourn Ken's death.
Sean
Sean is one of Hsu's friend at Berkeley. Hsu describes Sean as a “a cocky Indian kid majoring in economics... always mouthing off and nearly starting fights, introducing a lovably chaotic energy to our circle” (p. 88-89). Sean is an only child and he grew up in the San Bernardino Valley, and he has a close relationship with his parents. When describing the dangerous element of Berkeley, Hsu writes that “Sean twice lost a wad of cash to strangers” (p. 143).
Joie
Joie is Hsu's second serious girlfriend after the two begin dating in their senior year. Joie is from San Jose and like Hsu she is a political science student at Berkeley. Hsu describes being "enchanted by the way she moved through the world, taking in as much of it as possible, holding her body with purpose and intention, something I attributed to her background in dance" (p. 166). Although both Hsu and Joie dream of attending NYU for their PhD, only Joie is accepted to the school, and the two carry on a long-distance relationship while Hsu is studying in Boston.
Dave
Dave is Hsu's friend from high school and later his roommate during their freshman year at Berkeley. Both Dave and Paraag are close friends with Hsu and Ken, and together with Hsu they mourn Ken's death.
Suzy
Suzy is one of Hsu's friends during his time at Berkeley. She appears only in a photograph with Ken that Hsu describes at the beginning of the book.
Gwen
Gwen is one of Hsu's friends from Berkeley. Like Anthony and Alec, Gwen grew up in the Bay Area, and she lived with Alec in the Rapa-Nui apartment complex where Ken lived when he was killed. Hsu reveals that Ken's death was particularly hard for Gwen. Toward the end of the book, Hsu sees Gwen in New York and she asks him “were you and Ken really that close?” (p. 167). The question troubles Hsu and prompts him to consider whether he had misremembered elements of his relationship with Ken.
Alec
Alec is one of Hsu's friends from Berkeley. Hsu describes him as a "nervy hippie" who grew up in the Bay Area (p. 51). He and Ken bond over their love of music. He later lives in a two-bedroom apartment with Sammi. It is suggested that he has a problem with alcohol, and Hsu writes that "there was an open bar at one of Gwen’s work events, and Alec got so drunk that he fell down in the street, cracking his glasses and nearly blinding himself" (p. 139). During the court proceedings for Ken's killers, "Alec was shown through the wrong door, and he stood just a few feet away from one of Ken’s killers" and the event traumatizes Alec for years. Near the end of the book, Alec is working at a bar in Berkeley several years after everyone has graduated.
Mira
Mira is Hsu's first serous girlfriend. Hsu describes her as a “a Taiwanese American girl from Southern California who worked on the campus paper with me” and who Hsu found "intimidatingly hot" (p. 111). She and Ken bond together over their shared interest in culture and politics and start dating. Mira, Hsu, and Anthony are together at a rave on the night that Ken is killed. On the day that they learn that Ken has been killed, they have sex together for the first time.
Derrick
Derrick is one of Ken's fraternity brothers. Hsu describes him as being “a cheerful, fatherly engineering major from our dorm" (p. 55). When Ken is killed, Derrick goes with Sammi to talk with the police.
Jay
Jay is one of the students that Hsu teaches while working at the Richmond Youth Project. Hsu describes him as a “a thirteen-year-old with an intense, slightly terrifying smile” (p. 135). One day, Hsu takes Jay and some other boys in the program to a movie at the shopping mall. There, he ends up telling them about Ken's murder, one of the first time that he has talked about the event with people who did not know Ken.
Hsu's Therapist
While a student at Harvard, Hsu attends free therapy sessions offered by the school. His therapist is a woman with “red hair and inquisitive eyes" (p. 179). During the sessions, she tries to make Hsu realize that he is not responsible for Ken's death. In the last line of the book, Hsu tells his therapist that he will one day write about Ken.
