This is fresh air. I'm Tanya Mosley.

When you're a teenager trying to figure out your own identity and how you want to be seen,

one way is by asserting who you are through what you listen to or watch or play.

Sometimes the more esoteric the better, because it shows off your ability to discover these things

before anyone else. It shows your discerning taste. Our guest, Washu, writes about that time

period during his high school in college years, and the complicated search to find out who he

really is in a new memoir. She was a culture critic for The New Yorker, where he's been a

staff writer since 2017. The son of immigrants from Taiwan, he writes, we could never write in a way

that assumed anyone knew where we were coming from. There was nothing interesting about our context,

neither black nor white, just boring to everyone on the outside. Where do you even begin explaining

yourself? His best friend, Kin, was Japanese American and came from a more assimilated family

who had been in the US for generations. Washu's identity and his understanding of his past

present and future came to a turning point after Kin was shot and killed during a car jacking.

It was the first time he'd lost a friend and the only time he'd lost someone so violent and

suddenly Kin was killed in 1998 and she was been reflecting on it ever since. This memoir

reflects on the meaning of that friendship and the struggle to find meaning after the murder.

The book is called Stay True and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize this year, cited as an eloquent

and poignant coming of age account that considers intense youthful friendships but also random

violence that can suddenly and permanently alter the presumed logic of our personal narratives.

Terry Gross spoke to Xu last year when the book came out.

Washu, welcome to Fresh Air. I love your memoir and I'm so glad we have this chance to talk.

Thanks so much for having me. It's really it's a real delight to be here.

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