Episode 125: Roz Chast

Roz Chast is an award-winning cartoonist who started working for the New Yorker 45 years ago. Her drawings and their captions examine our everyday neuroses and anxieties. As an only child growing up in Brooklyn, Chast worried that a fire could break out in the wall and burn up her family. Or that she’d suddenly have an appendicitis attack and wind up in the hospital like Madeleine in that children’s story. After Chast moved to the suburbs and had to drive to the supermarket to buy milk, she was terrified about changing lanes. Now, Chast has written a book called I Must be Dreaming about all the wacky things that go on in our heads while we’re asleep. We talk about LSD, the scariest Twilight Zone episodes and how some of Roz Chast’s most terrifying visions turn out to be memorable cartoons.