What You Need to Know About Stay True by Hua Hsu
Stay True is a memoir by Hua Hsu, published in 2021. It chronicles his decade-long friendship with Mike Diamond, better known as Mike D from the Beastie Boys. The book centers on their time growing up together in Berkeley, California, during the 1980s, and how that bond persisted through Mike's rise to fame and through Hua Hsu's own struggles with identity and belonging. I picked it up because I was curious about the Beastie Boys' history from an angle most people don't encounter. Most biographies focus on the music or the drama. This one is quieter than that. It's more about what it feels like to watch someone you grew up with become famous while you stay the same person.
How to Actually Get a Copy
The book is available through major retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org. It's also on Audible as an audiobook, narrated by the author himself, which is worth considering since Hua Hsu's delivery adds something to the material. Library copies show up on Libby if you want to avoid spending money altogether. There is no official free PDF or download. Any site offering a free download is hosting a pirated copy. I won't link to those. The book sells for around $17 in paperback and $14 for the hardcover. If someone tells you otherwise, they're probably running a scam.
What the Book Actually Covers
The narrative moves between two timelines. One follows Hua Hsu and Mike D as teenagers in Berkeley — hangouts at video stores, record shops, the beach, mutual confusion about where they fit in. The other timeline tracks Hua Hsu as an adult dealing with depression, a failed relationship, and the slow process of figuring out what his life is supposed to look like. Mike's fame looms in the background like a weather system you can't control. One thing people don't always mention going in: this isn't a rock biography. The Beastie Boys show up when they're relevant to the friendship, but the book isn't structured around their discography or career milestones. If you're looking for insider music industry detail, you won't find it here. If you're looking for a honest portrait of a complicated friendship across class and fame lines, this is it.
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Common Mistakes People Make When Reading It
Readers who come in expecting a celebration of the Beastie Boys often feel disappointed somewhere around chapter four. The book doesn't gloss over Mike's privilege or the uncomfortable dynamics that came with it. Hua Hsu is self-aware about his own positioning — he knows he's writing about someone famous and he doesn't pretend otherwise. That self-awareness can feel uncomfortable. It's supposed to. Another thing: the timeline jumps around. Not chaotically, but it assumes you can hold two different periods of Hua Hsu's life in your head at once. Some readers skim through those transitions and miss the point. The structure is deliberate. The past and present are talking to each other the whole time.
The Parts People Talk About Most
There's a section early on about Mike D visiting Hua Hsu in New York, and the unspoken tension around money and access. Mike can drop into someone's apartment without thinking about it. Hua Hsu can't do the same thing. The book doesn't dramatize this. It just lays it out matter-of-factly, which somehow makes it hit harder than any dramatic scene would. Later, there's reflection on Mike's death in 2018. Hua Hsu doesn't provide the grief spectacle some readers might expect. He writes about showing up to the memorial, seeing the crowd, and feeling the strange weight of being one of the few people there who knew Mike before any of it. That passage is spare. It works because it isn't trying to be moving. It's just accurate.
Limitations Worth Stating
The book is short — around 250 pages. Some readers wanted more. More Beastie Boys content. More detail on the music. More confrontation with the harder questions about race and privilege in the punk and hip-hop scenes of the 80s. Hua Hsu touches on these things but doesn't treat them as the central thesis. If you want a deep dive into those topics, there are better resources. His New Yorker writings and podcast episodes go further in those directions. Also, the prose is deliberately plain. It's not lyrical. It's not trying to be. If you're reading for beautiful sentences, you'll be frustrated. If you're reading for honest observation, it's probably the best thing in that lane published in the last few years.
Who Should Read It and Who Shouldn't
Read it if you're interested in friendship as a lasting force, if you've ever had a friend who got famous while you didn't, or if you want to understand the human side of someone from a band you grew up with. Don't read it if you want a tell-all, a music industry exposé, or a particularly well-written literary experience. It's not those things. I finished it in two sittings. I thought about it for a week after. That's about as much as I can say about it without turning it into something it isn't.
