Sunnyside Gardens

Sunnyside Gardens is the commune in Sunnyside, Queens, New York, where Rose lives and raises Miriam. It is a hotbed of Left wing activity sanctified by Lewis Mumford and Eleanor Roosevelt, and is a neighborhood of buildings which surrounds a communal garden. The area remains well-kept and together as the decades pass, but the area itself sees a wide-ranging shift in the actual Leftist movements associated with it. The militant Communism of the 1940s and 1950s gives way to the Hippie movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and which all ultimately pave way to softer Left wing movements between the 1980s and 2000s, culminating with the Occupy Movement of the 2010s. It is these Left wing dissidents that give the novel, Dissident Gardens, its name.

East Germany

East Germany is where Albert moves when the Communist Party calls on him to engage in spy work. Albert, though...