The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory

A riveting coming-of-age story that follows a young woman who squats abandoned buildings with comrades in 1990s New York City.

“Wakefield wrote an intrepid nonfiction book about modern squatting, Not for Rent (1996), and now vividly fictionalizes the experience, portraying various oddball characters in her charmingly laid-back, dialogue-rich first novel with empathy and insight.” ―Booklist

“Wakefield . . . draws on personal experience for this colorful and entertaining depiction. . . . the sentiment of the nomadic community in New York in the ‘90s comes alive through historical references and Sid’s journey as she forges a network of like-minded individuals.” ―Publishers Weekly

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 spent years living in squatted buildings in Europe and New York and brings firsthand knowledge to Sid’s story: how urban homesteaders lived without plumbing or electricity, how they managed their semilegal status, and what they cared about and fought for. With Sid, Wakefield has created a character who belongs to that world and is also entirely relatable. Sid is a resourceful, intrepid young woman with a wry sense of humor; she’s great company on our journey into the lost world of New York City’s recent past.

STACY WAKEFIELD’s artist books, published for many years under the imprint Evil Twin, have been collected by institutions include the Museum of Modern Art in New York and London’s Tate Modern. She runs a studio dedicated solely to book design and production. Her first novel, The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory, was published by Akashic in 2015. She lives in the Catskills and Brooklyn. Her other collaborations with Akashic are Please Take Me Off the Guest List and 131 Different Things, both with Zachary Lipez and Nick Zinner.