[A Sip of Books] How to Mourn a Friend Murdered 20 Years Ago

Editor's NoteSome sentences encapsulate the entire content of a book, while others instantly resonate with the reader, creating a connection with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from books.

This is an essay by Taiwanese-American Hua Xu, reflecting on a murdered friend. The author, a second-generation immigrant, builds a friendship with Ken, a Japanese-American student with a similar background at UC Berkeley. However, twenty-year-old Ken is murdered by three robbers in the early morning of July 19, 1998. As the memory of the departed friend fades, the author summons memories through photos, music, movies, and writing, imagining the "possibilities of time that never happened." She mourns in her own way by picturing scenes like celebrating her friend's twenty-first birthday party and attending law school after fulfilling his dreams. The book also explores the 1990s era, including alternative rock, the rise of Nirvana, and the Black civil rights movement. Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize, it has been praised as "an elegant and heartbreaking coming-of-age record that carefully examines the intense friendships of youth and the random violence that forever changes lives."

We periodically suffered from the fever of love that seemed to haunt us in grief for the rest of our lives. For a while, I was caught up in the thought that someday I would write an unprecedentedly sad story. - p.13

Like many immigrants who value education, my parents believed that one must excel in fields like science. This was because such subjects are not left to interpretation. They are areas where discrimination through grading is impossible. But I was the type who preferred to cling to various interpretations. - p.17

When immigrants gather, they often talk about the push and pull dynamics. Something pushes them away from their hometown, and something else pulls them from somewhere far away. In one place, opportunities dry up, while in another, they sprout, promising a better future and leading us forward. Such journeys have unfolded in various forms everywhere for hundreds of years. - p.25

The experience of that moment. It would be nice to foresee the future of friendship. Knowing that we will grow older and part ways, and that one day, for reasons unimaginable now, we might need each other. We realize early on that friendship is light and temporary. - p.69

Derrida was drawn to the paradox glimpsed in this translation. Focusing on the tension inherent between friend and enemy, public and private life, the living and the ‘ghost,’ he contemplated the possibility of new bonds. - p.83

As soon as the passage of Proposition 209 was confirmed, protests erupted on the streets. That evening, I went to the campus clock tower. Some student protesters were already chained to the railing at the top of the clock tower, vowing not to come down until the bill was repealed. - p.112

This class was filled with serious enthusiasm, and reporters from across the country looked on in disbelief that rap music could be a subject in a university course. - p.116

Then one of my mentees suddenly pulled out a pistol (I didn’t even know he had one), and the opposing car swerved into another lane. He pointed and burst out laughing. “Those Chinese guys.” I wondered which side I fell on in their classification, but I wasn’t curious enough to ask. - p.137

No matter how much I talk, the fact that I miss you doesn’t lessen at all, so now I can divide that feeling into several eras. I miss the time around October 1998 when I missed you. I miss the time when I didn’t have to watch my back, the times we went out for dinner at night, and the times we smoked on your balcony. - p.278

Approaching Truth | Written by Hua Xu | Translated by Jeong Mina | RHK | 284 pages | 16,800 KRW

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