Book excerpt: "The Satisfaction Café" by Kathy Wang

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In "The Satisfaction Café," a gently witty new novel from Kathy Wang ("Family Trust"), a woman from Taiwan moves to California, where she finds a new life as a wealthy man's fourth wife and mother to his children. But her search for connections leads her to create a safe space for people to find what they really want: to be heard.

Read an excerpt below.

"The Satisfaction Café" by Kathy Wang

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Joan Liang's life in America began in Palo Alto, where she lived in the attic of a two-story home on Azalea Street. Joan did chores for the widow who owned the house in exchange for reduced rent; she never could have afforded such a nice neighborhood otherwise. She lived in that attic until she was married, and she was married for only six weeks before she stabbed her husband. Joan was twenty-five and had lived in the United States for two years. The year was 1977.

Joan had not thought she would stab her husband. It had been an accident (sort of). Afterward she was disappointed that marriage had not turned out as she'd imagined. She had thought it would be wonderful. It had been, actually. Until it wasn't.

Though later, Joan would wonder why she'd ever thought marriage would be so special. As a child in Taiwan, most of the married women Joan encountered were melancholy, if not outright miserable; throughout her childhood, Joan's own mother had on occasion risen from the kitchen table without warning to cry with showy force into her hands.

"You've ruined everything!" Mei would shriek if any of the children came near, and so they soon learned to keep away, which only worsened Mei's despondency. At least every other Saturday, Joan's father, Wen-Bao, spent the night across town in Shilin, where he kept a two-bedroom apartment for his mistress. Joan's mother was haunted by the two bedrooms; it drove her nuts, Mei said, to think of so much empty space.

"Can you imagine," Mei would remark, legs crossed as she sat before her vanity, "how much lust a man must carry inside, to furnish such a large place for one woman? When all six of us are crowded in the same square footage? Do you understand the scope of his betrayal?" At this point Joan's brothers usually wandered off; they were bored by this conversation, which repeated itself every few months. Only Joan would remain at her mother's feet, where she watched Mei sit with perfect posture before her mirror and pluck white strands from her hairline.

After moving to California, Joan established the routine of calling her parents every Sunday evening Taipei time, during which Wen-Bao, if he'd visited his mistress that weekend, would have already returned home. On these calls, Joan's parents performed the same interrogation: how her studies at Stanford were proceeding, if there was any chance to graduate early from her master's program so that she might begin to earn money. Money was key. Joan had three brothers, each of whom by various rights (older, male) should have been sent abroad before her. Two had been disqualified by their academics, whereas the top candidate, Alfred, had been surprised by "issues" (his girlfriend was pregnant), and so at the last minute Joan was sent instead.

From "The Satisfaction Café" by Kathy Wang. Copyright 2025 by Kathy Wang. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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