Books Cartooning Interviews

Roz Chast Must Be Dreaming

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D. D. Degg October 24, 2023 1 minute 0 comments

The new book by cartoonist Roz Chast, I Must Be Dreaming, was released today and is being talked about and reviewed by all the major outlets. So The Daily Cartoonist, which dreams of playing with the big boys, joins in.

A day late, we missed the launch at Museum of the City of New York yesterday.

The reviews started last week with The New York Times, followed quickly by The Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

Closer to the release date is Heller McAlpin at NPR:

Talk about a dream, kill a conversation. Write about one and risk a more effective soporific than melatonin. Yet, even though cartoonist Roz Chast acknowledges that “Only shrinks are interested, and maybe not even them,” she has written an entire book about dreams. And — no surprise — it’s delightful.

She pulls it off because she’s Roz Chast; even her subconscious emanations present deliciously skewed takes on life’s absurdities and fraught moments…

The Boston Globe review from today.

Also today is Bay Area Reporter reporter Gregg Shapiro interviewing Roz.

In the “Recurring Dreams” section, there is a dream about a Manhattan neighborhood with a beach. Later, in the “Everyday Dreams” section, there is a dream about a Manhattan Sahara Desert with conch shells. What do you think is the significance of the sand dreams?
That I don’t know. But I do know there’s something about New York where, aside from the beaches in Brooklyn, you almost never get down to the water. A couple of times, maybe a year ago, I was in this part of Queens, I think it was Socrates Park or something, it was near the Noguchi Museum.

There was this weird mini beach where you could actually get down to the water. There was something very dreamlike about it. It wasn’t like an official beach. When you think about Manhattan, the idea of actually being able to — I’m not saying anybody would want to wade into the Hudson — but there’s something, to me, very dreamy about just that in itself.

More Roz:

A Dream excerpt about comic books from The New Yorker.

An interview with Roz from last month’s The New York Times Magazine.