Sid arrives in New York City in 1995 eager to join the anarchist squatting scene. She's got a tattoo, she listens to the right bands...so why would she get a job and rent some tiny shoe-box apartment when she could take over a whole building with a gang of wild young pirates? But the Lower East Side is changing; there are no more empty buildings, the squats are cliquey and full. Sid teams up with a musician from Mexico and together they find their way across the bridge to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Packs of wild dogs roam the waterfront and the rough building in which they finally find space is occupied by misfits who don't know anything about the Manhattan squatting scene, Food Not Bombs, Critical Mass, or hardcore punk. But this is Sid's chance and she's determined to make a home for herself--no matter what.
"Wakefield puts her knowledge of activist punk culture to great use in The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory, setting the story against a backdrop of Born Against patches and ABC No Rio matinees, building tension through contentious house meetings and showing how the scene's realities can put idealism to the test."
Razorcake
"If you know anything about New York punk culture you know at least a little about the squats in the book. Sid works at ABC No Rio, and sometimes sleeps on their roof during the summer (hands up if you remember the squatter camp up there!), she goes to C Squat, has friends at Serenity; it's a big old LES squatters party in this book."
Maximum RocknRoll
"This novel is in the realm of Ash Thayer's Kill City, and much of it is spent renovating, hauling debris, getting water, etc....Think of it as a book about a woman doing everything on her own; no money from home, and no getting by on her looks."
