Cartoon Queen Roz Chast: Why I Love New York

New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast hates plenty of things: snakes, weird bugs, balloons, driving. But she absolutely loves Manhattan–giant water bugs, hellish traffic, and all. Her new book, Going Into Town, is part love letter and part guide to the city she fell for when she moved there at 23. She says it was “the first time I felt that my life would not be a s— show.”

Chast, 62, now lives with her family in leafy Ridgefield, Conn., about an hour north of the city. She and her husband, writer Bill Franzen, moved there when she was pregnant with daughter Nina, now 26, the second of her two children (son Ian is 30). The suburbs are lovely, Chast concedes, but don’t expect a love letter to Ridgefield anytime soon. “Sometimes I still walk out my door,” she says, ” look around and think, what do I do now?”

Chast sat down with PEOPLE to discuss the inspiration for her new book and why she’s a city girl at heart.

 

For the full Roz Chast interview, pick up the current issue of PEOPLE, on stands now. 

Going Into Town is out now.