Parnassus Presents: Kathy Wang with Lindsay Lynch

Parnassus Books is thrilled to bring you our event with Kathy Wang in celebration of her latest novel, The Satisfaction Café. She is in conversation with our very own Lindsay Lynch. This event was recorded live on the Parnassus stage on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. Buy a copy of The Satisfaction Café from Parnassus: https://bit.ly/4ptyxXi ABOUT THE BOOK: An engrossing and original story about a woman who moves from Taiwan to California and builds an unexpected life there, for readers of Olive Kitteridge and Hello Beautiful. Joan Liang's life is a series of surprising developments: she never thought she would leave Taiwan for California, nor did she expect her first marriage to implode--especially as quickly and spectacularly as it did. She definitely did not expect to fall in love with an older, wealthy American and become his fourth wife and mother to his youngest children. Through all this she wrestles with one persistent question: Will she ever truly feel satisfied? As Joan and her children grow older and their circumstances evolve, she makes a drastic change: she opens the Satisfaction Café, a place where people can visit for a bit of conversation and to be heard and understood. Through this radical yet pragmatic business, Joan constructs a lasting legacy. Vivid, comic, and intensely moving, The Satisfaction Café is a novel about found family, the joy and loneliness that come with age, and how we can give ourselves permission to seek satisfaction and connection at any stage of life. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kathy Wang is the author of Family Trust, Imposter Syndrome, and The Satisfaction Café. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School, and lives in the Bay Area. ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER: Lindsay Lynch is a writer from Washington, DC. A longtime indie bookseller, she currently lives in Nashville, TN, where she works as a book buyer for Parnassus Books. Her work has appeared in The Adroit Journal, The Rumpus, Electric Lit, The Atlantic, The Offing and Lit Hub, among other places. She has been a participant in the Tin House Summer Work­shop and the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Wyoming. ............................................................................................................................... Intro & Outro Music "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License