Stay True: A Memoir

Friendship is a central theme of Hua’s memoir. Hua and Ken’s unlikely friendship is based on their Asian American identities and common interests, not on having similar personalities. Indeed, Hua presents himself as Ken’s opposite throughout the book. He devotes much of his memoir to the mundane moments at the core of their friendship, such as cruising, smoking, studying, and listening to music. More extreme moments, such as their excitement writing a screenplay inspired by The Last Dragon and their fervor after Ken experienced racism on campus, punctuate the mundane and capture the ebb and flow of their college friendship. Hua describes the contradictions inherent in adolescent friendships, which are at once intense and mundane.

In addition to these close-grained descriptions, Hua elaborates on friendship through references to Jacques Derrida’s essay, “The Politics of Friendship” and the writings on gift giving and reciprocity by anthropologist Marcel Mauss. Chapter 3 offers the reader at least two points from Derrida’s essay to help understand what their friendship means and how the memoir will develop. First, Derrida emphasizes that in a friendship one always imagines what it will be like looking back, after the person is gone.