If you’ve dropped by a public library in Denver recently and, like more than a thousand other people, were offered an orange and yellow paperback book for free, it wasn’t a fluke.
It’s part of a reading program led by the Denver Public Library that has been reinstated this year after taking a hiatus. The program is called One Book One Denver, and it’s intended to get people out of post-COVID isolation and reading the same book – one that could spark connection and community-building.
Most recently, it was a program for young people, but this year, it’s returned with an adult title: "Stay True," a page-turner of a memoir set in the 1990s by Hua Hsu, who is the son of Taiwanese immigrants and works as a college professor in New York. Now in his late 40s, he spent 20 years working on the book, which was published in 2022 to great acclaim. It won a Pulitzer Prize and was a best-seller.
It takes a microscope to a friendship between Hsu and another Asian student named Ken while they attend college together in Northern California. Hsu is more of an introvert who writes a ‘zine, listens to hip-hop and shops in thrift stores, while Ken is more outgoing, taking dance classes in public and finding ways to befriend a wide swath of people.
The two bond despite outward differences because they both enjoy some of the same things, including underground film Berry Gordy’s "The Last Dragon" and smoking cigarettes on balconies. About two-thirds of the way through, the plot twists when an unexpected act of violence takes Ken away from their friend group.
The library gave out 1,500 copies of that book — 100 of them in Spanish, to the surprise and delight of the author, who declined interviews but provided the library with a statement: “It's so great that this city-wide reading program is back, and I feel honored to be a part of its return. I wrote Stay True for quite personal reasons, not imagining the reception it's gotten over the past few years. Witnessing how it has resonated with strangers has been such an amazing surprise. I hope it's a book that brings people together in discussion and friendship.”
