Joan Liang's American life began in a strange way. She lived with her parents and older brothers in a small apartment in Taiwan and was a very good student. The family had been saving for years for one of the brothers to go to graduate school in America but the two eldest weren't smart and the third brother got his girlfriend pregnant and had to marry her. Joan was sent to Stanford and joined her fellow Chinese students in their tightly bound community-she even found a very suitable boyfriend who became her husband. She stabbed him six weeks later with a protractor when he suggested a threeway with his friend-they divorced right after.
Joan was lonely. Her ex got his side out to their community and she was shunned, so she started taking free classes when she wasn't hosting at a Chinese restaurant. After class she'd sit outside and listen to a speaker who would yell his dissatisfaction at the state of the world. After a few weeks, she noticed a good-looking older man on another bench, they met and started talking. He had beautiful clothes and was obviously well-off, and she found he was 51 to her 25. They went out several times and finally slept together, and he proposed marriage-she would be his fourth wife, and live in one of the most beautiful houses in Palo Alto. She would also have to contend with his privileged family and his two children who were close to her age.
Her life with Bill was sometimes frustrating, especially when his family denigrated her talents and her Chinese beginnings. But there were compensations-she was rich, she would inherit the house when Bill died, and they had a wonderful son, and adopted a daughter.
An incident occurring after Bill's death put Joan and her family at loose ends. She missed her husband, and had no one with whom she could talk through her problems. That was the inspiration for realizing her childhood dream-a place to eat where hosts work to ask diners questions and provide pleasant conversation-she named it the Satisfaction Cafe.
Wang brings up the issues of sadness, isolation and loneliness in a quiet, restrained way. Many things happen in the novel, but the author offers a graceful pragmatic character in Joan, who goes her own way and deals with whatever comes as well as she can. If cafes can offer cats to make people happier, why can't true human companionship be offered too?
Reviewed by Donna Ballard
July 1, 2025
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