Stacy Wakefield

Wow, Manhattan was a very different place in the 90s.

My family are mostly New Yorkers, and I know the city pretty well. However, I don't know it from the point of someone coming in from the outside, and I honestly can't comprehend the struggles of trying to make things work in one of the most competitive real estate markets in the world.

The characters of The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory are trying to make it work, and while none of them truly spoke to me, I found the process of them living fascinating. This look at the squatting culture of Manhattan and Brooklyn was revealing, and inspired me to go and do some research. Wakefield got it, and this book gives texture to a way of life that most of us never even realized was going on.… (mais)

Squatter culture is a new term for me and I was intrigued to view this from a fictional point of view from an author who had actually lived the lifestyle. I was very curious to learn if "homelessness" was synonymous to "squatter".

When the book opened with Sid getting a tattoo (to fit in) and moving to the Lower East Side of NYC with the intent of becoming a squatter by choice, I sat back and thought this will be an interesting point of view! Obviously Sid was choosing to be homeless rather than homeless brought on by unfortunate circumstance. She was aglow with her idealist view of squatter culture, a life commingling with artsy and punk music people while rejecting mainstream lifestyles.

The author has chosen a 1995 NYC setting and in doing Sid arrives a day late and a dollar short for immersion into the Manhattan squatter culture. The thousands of abandoned buildings, a result of 20 years of a depressed economic climate were maxed out with squat occupants. Instead of being received with open arms, Sid finds that merging into squat life isn't as easy as she had expected. Sid latches onto the first person to give her the time of day, a punk music artist, Lorenzo. Together they head to Brooklyn where they have been told that there are more opportunities to find a squat home. Her on-going infatuation with Lorenzo throughout the book drove me to distraction. I wanted to scream. Grow up! He just not that into you!

Sid's character was so socially and emotionally immature; although I have to admit she was tenacious and willing to keep seeking her ideal after suffering rejection and hardship time after time. The story rambled from one scene to another with very little variation. I began to think…"second verse, same as the first". The story made me feel miserable, but not from the physical hardships. As someone who lived for months at a time out of a backpack and sleeping in a one-person tent, grunge and fire hydrant water isn't that strange. My point is that I can't imagine going out of my way to try to fit into someone else's life style just to fill my need to belong to a group. Sid never seemed to see that she was being used by her "friends" and housemates.

The one character that stood out to me was Mitch. Mitch was in the squat scene for a long time and perhaps best exemplifies Sid's image of a communal being; a good hard-working person dedicated to free living. The Bakery was Mitch's find and as the more derelict of the squat life filled each floor, the misfits and low-lives continuously banged heads with him. His initial image is that of an angry grouch but as we learn, he really is the better angel in the compound.

The best written part of the story to me was the fire at Rot-Squat and the ensuing drama caused by the city's disregard for the squatters and the destruction of their building.

I wasn't totally disappointed in the book as I was drawn to do further research into squat culture. The subject was so different from my usual genre selections and overall I was very pleased to see a glimpse of life I would never have expected to exist.

I want to thank Edelweiss and Akashic Books for the advanced e-bookcopy in exchange for my review.
… (mais)

It's 1995 when Sid arrives in New York City determined to follow her dream of joining the thriving NYC squatting scene. She imagines reclaiming a piece of a derelict, abandoned building to have a certain romance to it, and she shows up ready to take her place among the anarchists and punk rockers who have colonized the Lower East Side. Unfortunately, she's a little late to the movement, the established squats of the Lower East Side are full, and it's already midsummer - not much time to make a home she hasn't found yet habitable before winter comes on. It seems the only choice for Sid and the guy she wishes was her boyfriend is to move their search for a squat to Brooklyn where they throw in with a group of different sorts of squatters in an old bread factory in Williamsburg.

The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory is a strange and wonderful little book that I really enjoyed. First, it's unique. Wakefield really pulled back the curtain on an interesting time in New York City history that has gone under-explored. Secondly, it almost has the feel of a very compellingly written memoir. There's no clear theme or plot here, no preachy moralizing, just a zoomed in look at a very formative time of a very sympathetic narrator. There's no clear beginning or end, no contrived-seeming progression of events. Wakefield's novel feels very organic, and despite what would seem to be my comments to the contrary, it's a fast and engaging read with an ending that's not exactly final, but is satisfying nonetheless. Sunshine Crust is gritty and real without being gross or off-putting. It features a loveable narrator, one who's interested in falling in love but whose life isn't defined in terms of her love interest(s).

The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory is the sort of book that I wish the New Adult genre had aspired to. Wakefield perfectly captures that time in a young person's life when everything seems possible, when we still believe that with enough courage and sacrifice the lives we imagine for ourselves can become a reality. Sid is perfectly idealistic, not looking to change the world necessarily, but believing that she knows what she wants, and that she can make it happen if she gives it her all. What she gets as she follows her dreams, what we all get, really, is a lot of struggle, a lot of feeling like she doesn't quite measure up to the person she's trying to be, and a lot of loneliness punctuated with a few bright, shining moments where she really does feel like she's arrived where she'd always intended to be. If you ask me, this is what it's really like being a new adult, finding the limits to the life you dreamed of, struggling to figure out who you are, what you're made of, and where you fit in the landscape of the real world when the safety net is torn away.… (mais)

This book was certainly enlightening when it came to the squatter culture. I knew very little to begin with, and probably stereotyped squatters as much as everyone else, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I learned about them from Wakefield's story.

I was also surprised by how the protagonist's father was fully supportive of his daughter's choice to squat. Not that he should condemn her, but wasn't he worried for her safety? I was definitely worried, and not just because of some of the violence between her and her housemates. Some of the buildings were in dangerous condition and the fact that the main character didn't sustain any injuries or get sick more than once despite toughing out a New York winter seemed incredibly lucky to me.

The narrative seems to start in the middle of a story that's already being told, and it kind of ends that way too. I suppose this could be a metaphor for the squatter lifestyle; joining a squat that someone has already started and moving on when it's still going, but the lack of resolution was a little frustrating.… (mais)