New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast and … I want the photo albums and a few things off the wall." [Sighs] Yeah…. Career. RC:  I was hoping that I would be much better at it than I was. Death is no laughing matter, yet somehow her illustrations and honest, compassionate, and funny narrative see the reader through. In her first graphic memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Chast dives into the always frustrating, often funny, sometimes surreal world of elder care. They were okay with being codependent. There was very little that I wanted, because it’s just stuff, stuff, stuff. I mean it was endearing. And then at a certain point, it was like, "I don't want anything. What has your experience been with this? They dressed differently. I think maybe she was trying to protect me. She was 97. A hundred years in a kind of suspended animation? It’s classic Chast. I had a chance to interview Roz Chast, the New Yorker cartoonist and best selling author of Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? And so it is with resignation that she anticipates the events of this Tuesday, which include the publication of her latest book … She grew up in an apartment building in Brooklyn, N.Y., and though she moved to the suburbs as an adult when she was pregnant with her second child, she never stopped loving the grit and excitement of New York City. They had this crease down the front and it would have a cuff and he would wear them with “man shoes.” I never saw him until almost the end of his life wear sneakers. Then you have people alive for what? But it’s exactly that treatment that makes Chast’s graphic chronicle palatable. It was like an explosion of happiness and relief and joy and tears and just seeing his beloved Elizabeth again. Her father, George, was a sensitive man often gripped by anxiety. RC: Yeah, I think so. And I think when your second parent dies, there is that shock: "Oh man, I'm an orphan." To bring it more out in the open, to not just follow blindly in this way. I mean, they saved for it and pretty much broke even. Over nearly four decades, her cartoons in The New Yorker have captured a certain kind of anxious … Interview with Roz Chast July 29, 2014 Andrew_Richards Leave a comment “I had three different majors at RISD: graphic design, for which I was completely unsuited; then illustration, which was ok but I got tired of it; and finally, painting.” But when I drew those people that a lot of people think of as my parents I think they’re also not just my specific parents, but a certain kind of parent figure, you know? There are so many expenses at the end of life that insurance doesn't touch ... and if they have savings that they have scrimped together, as my parents did, to see it rushing out. I took over handling the pensions, handling the banking, handling the taxes.Some of it was maybe generational, this uncomfortableness with money. RC: It’s highway robbery. Roz Chast's cartoons have also been published in Scientific American, Harvard Business Review and Mother Jones. hide caption. RC: No. They had a microwave oven! Redecorate your house for fall!” Are you fucking nuts? It was always very stressful to talk to other people. Did you ever imagine it would be perceived that way? And I started putting stuff in garbage bags because I thought maybe I could do this myself, and I filled up a few of them and I had not even done 1 percent. They never asked about the cost of the assisting living and you never told them. It was really patched with masking tape. BLVR: Three types of artwork appear in the book: cartoons, sketches and photos. There were really empty stacks of egg crates in the refrigerator.” But at the time I was doing it, I wasn’t thinking of putting them in a book. It doesn’t matter at all. Biography. I was there with them when he came over and we talked about things like health care proxy forms. It was too complicated, too frightening to them. Liza: You and I … BLVR: How do you approach acquiring things now? If you’re the caretaker, you’re going to need access more often than you think to information like your parents social security numbers, the person you talked to and what you talked about, if there’s an issue that needs to be untangled, what stage of the untangling you’re at, their phone number. I found all the clothes I had been sending from Land’s End or L.L. It’s really scary. Isn’t it like saying “here’s your hat, what’s your hurry”? The book is practically a cautionary tale for a generation, yet of course applicable to everyone whose parents will eventually die, as parents eventually tend to do. In a 2006 interview with comedian Steve Martin for the New Yorker Festival, Chast revealed that she enjoys drawing interior scenes, often involving lamps and accentuated wall paper, to serve as the backdrop for her comics.Her comics reflect a "conspiracy of inanimate objects", an expression she credits to her mother. Why? There's a kind of black comedy to it too. How? BLVR: When your mother was in her final stages, you told her that “It’s okay to let go.”. All this stuff that you have to keep on top of and that helped me feel a little less sixes and sevens about everything. ... To see all of that scrimping just sort of — like a Niagara Falls of expense at the end. BLVR: You admit that you resented taking care of your mother, but also feeling guilty and jealous of her friendship with “a complete stranger,” Goodie, her West Indian caregiver. On hiring a lawyer who specialized in talking about the difficult topics of death and money. The CJM is pleased to present the only appearance of Roz Chast’s Cartoon Memoirs retrospective exhibition outside of New York and Massachusetts. BLVR: Were you worried that it might hasten her death? She offers little advice except to face up to what’s coming down the pike, a sentiment summed up in the ironic inscription she penned in my review copy: “This will never happen to us.”. So I don’t think it would have made sense if I hadn’t been. BLVR: Your book almost served as a “What to Expect” for the children of elderly parents. I think most people understand that this book is not one thing or another. That was totally unfamiliar to them. Other than that, everybody’s situation is so different and their relationship with their parents so different that’s really the only concrete advice that I feel comfortable giving. When they went into assisted living I sort of took it all over. Chast lives with her husband in Connecticut. When people would say [in southern accent], “Well my Daddy beat me and I’m beating my children!” I’d said no, actually, I want to think, is there a better way to do this? But, the real life Roz Chast is a lovely, generous, sincere, funny, observer of life, which she depicts brilliantly in her cartoons. Not what you’d expect from a contributor to a highbrow literary mag and resident of a staid Connecticut suburb. RC: We had many malteds together. I am grateful to them and I love them and they also drove me bananas. They were just very traditional and did not look at fashion. November 30th, 2017. And because I know I’m going in this direction, I’m hoping that somebody figures out some way that it will be better. I love you so much, you must stay with me forever and ever.” But what’s the logic of that? BLVR: Your mother, though, was “fierce,” and dominated you and your father, who have similar, meeker personalities. [Roz Chast talks about the final years of her parents’ lives] ... (This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.) They want all your assets. They were frugal, they were very careful about money. No. I have loved Roz Chast’s cartoons since I first saw them in the early 1980s, when my older and more cosmopolitan brother introduced me to And when my mother died, it was like, for the most part, it's over. Chast's subjects often deal with domestic and family life. RC: We will betray you. To be a parent where it’s not yelling or screaming? Sign up for The Believer’s mailing list and get free essays, comics, interviews, and more, right in your inbox. My father always wore—I think of them as “man pants.” I don’t even know what they were made of. Why isn’t some 40-year-old white man doing it? Roz Chast's cartoons have also been published in Scientific American, Harvard Business Review and Mother Jones. I didn’t write this book to settle a score, but I also wanted to be truthful. BLVR: And they didn’t get some cartoons about themselves anyway. I think that’s partly why I was not such a happy camper growing up. Roz Chast is the poet laureate of urban neurosis. It’s kind of like long-term health insurance. I don’t know. She wasn’t talking very much. And I don’t know how my father would feel. I found their codependency endearing—did you? They wore these strange really old-fashioned sorts of clothes. Nora Krug is an editor and writer for Book World. My parents never had a microwave oven. New Yorker Cartoonist: These Days, She’s Changing Her Toon. “I WASN’T A GREAT CARETAKER AND THEY WEREN’T GREAT AT BEING TAKEN CARE OF.”. My bad: I’ve just asked the author of Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? When Chast and I were arranging our interview, I took my cues from Going Into Town. During the fall term, Roz Chast, acclaimed cartoonist for The New Yorker visited Drexel University’s Pennoni Honors College for a double episode shoot of “The Drexel InterView,” which is an award-winning half-hour television series produced by the Pennoni Honors College and is hosted by Dean Paula Marantz Cohen, PhD. And as far as the money thing goes, talk about black comedy! She tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about helping her parents through their final years and how she coped with their deaths. This interview was first broadcast Dec. 18, 1987. I certainly didn’t. I just could not do it. BLVR: When did you start including your parents in your cartoons? While not every New Yorker may know Chast by name, most New Yorkers are familiar with her illustrations. When I was younger I was very self-conscious of them because they were so different for so many different reasons from my friends’ parents. RC: He was so happy to see her. By Emily Gordon Special to Newsday. You learn things and you talk about it. I hate this because I’m not a soap box person. It's never easy to talk with aging parents about the end of life, but it was maybe particularly difficult for Roz Chast and her parents, which is why her new graphic memoir is called Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? When my father died my mother was still alive. They never threw anything away, and it was not like there was anything "valuable." Her mother outlived her father and died in 2009 at the age of 97. A Roz Chast cartoon in the latest (2/1/21) New Yorker: Questions asked often enough that they border on clichés. I have not met her yet—I am waiting near the desk to catch a glimpse of the New Yorker cartoonist as she emerges from the elevator—but overhearing this makes me smile. Her 2014 graphic memoir Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? They're frequently asked questions -- but they're not Frequently Asked Questions, Frequently Asked Questions being an idiomatic expression usually reduced to an alphabetic abbreviation, the noun FAQ. David Remnick said that he had read somewhere that the worst thing for a parent is to have a child that’s a writer. She has published over 600 cartoons in the magazine. RC: I haven’t turned into a total ascetic, by any means, but I have enough knickknacks to last a lifetime. If she were to draw the scene, her hair would be frazzled, her eyes crossed, exclamation points and swirls would encircle her head to emphasize her self-deprecation. Why did you want to talk about it? It cost $14,000 a month to care for your mother alone at the end. Courtesy Roz Chast Sketchy Interviews is a new recurring series on Gothamist in which we will feature visual interviews with some of the best … Especially if you’re an only child you don’t know what people talk about. There was a certain tide of feelings that emerged. They were really very united in this thing. It was like I’m living with these people and didn’t talk to them about other people that much. RC: I think there was a kind of childish part of me that was like, “Look I’m not making up the cheese-tainer. This interview was conducted in two sessions on January 11 and 12, 2020, and combined. Roz Chast sheepishly approaches the front desk of the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco to reveal that she has [wince] locked her card key in the room. Is there a better way to teach my kids right from wrong? In my interview of Roz for my series on Funny Women, she spoke about the book, her parents and being a woman in field dominated by men. New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast is a city person. ABOUT THE GUEST: Roz Chast has had her cartoons and covers featured in The New Yorker magazine since 1978. ... read full interview I felt very guilty for so many reasons. You have to write about what’s interesting to you and what you want to write about. It was just too scary to own anything. I bought them furniture. She was born at seven-and-a-half months. And it wasn’t all funny, you know. I just thought, oh, just give it to the super, whatever. She lived for a day and died, and my mother almost died in the process. They did depend utterly on this other person, and in some ways, I find it sort of fantastic, the kind of relationship that I’ll never have and maybe there are aspects of it that are terrible because they were so much more merged than most people I know. In Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast combines text, cartoons, sketches and photos to describe her interactions with her parents during the last years of their lives. That explains a lot—like why they were such helicopter parents and germaphobes. BLVR: How did being an only child affect your observations of your parents? They have two children who are now in their 20s. Although I religiously read the New Yorker, I have to say that I wasn’t familiar with cartoonist Roz Chast until the publication of her graphic memoir Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? I mean they didn’t own their apartment after the building went coop. There were aspects of their anti-inquisitiveness that were admirable. Roz Chast's quirky pen-and-ink drawings have appeared in The New Yorker since 1978. The real-life Roz really is the sincere, baffled observer she depicts in her cartoons. RC: He was. She wasn’t eating, she was drinking Ensure. RC: Probably pretty early on. It was mostly just old, beat up luggage and typewriters ... an old rexograph machine, bajillions of old bed slippers and umbrellas and shoes and towels. Going to a second-hand shop no longer holds the same charm that it once did for me. They talk about their parents and make fun of them. Once you go through your parents’ deaths, it changes the way you look at stuff. So it was hard for them, and I’m sure it affected them, more than I am probably aware, and how I was brought up and their relationship with me. What did you end up salvaging? The celebrated cartoonist Roz Chast reveals her double life as a ukulele superstar; Jennifer Egan talks about cops and mobsters; and the Trump kids get into hot water in SoHo. When they first when in, my father asked me if they would still have to pay taxes. It's a complicated thing because, on one hand, I just felt so awful thinking about the money, but it was terrifying. It was scary. On other hand, I think about something a friend of mine who had gone through something similar said, which was that if you don't think your children will be interested, don't keep it. Did you decide to photograph the hoarding at your parents’ apartment because it was the most journalistic? In her first memoir, long-time New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. And I think he was able to ... somehow make them trust him enough that they could open up a little bit about things that they really never wanted to open up about, like money and talking about the future. Comment s RC: From what I have heard this often happens. Not really. If you are not young and strong and productive and mentally with it, the more people don’t want to look at you. THE INCOMPARABLE ROZ CHAST by Anna Paganelli Don’t miss our event with New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast on Wednesday, June 4th at 7:30. I could have had that money." BLVR: You illustrate your wonderful relationship with your father, who took you out for a malted and simply understood and respected you as a person. It’s like the blackest comedy of all. That is a very common phrase in hospitals. RC: It was everything, and then on top of everything else losing a child is so devastating. She had this hairstyle that I think she had gotten in the ’30s, with a kind of curl on the forehead. Clearly he was your favorite. I didn’t want to save the objects, but the photos were a way to remember them. You can’t pass it through all of these filters—once you go down that rabbit hole, like, “I can’t write about this because of this.” I mean I don’t go out of my way to write anything that is hurtful. And I feel that—and maybe this is a very Baby Boomerish kind of thing—that we have done things differently, you know? I look at old lamps and placemats from the ’50s or ’60s and think: ahhh, this is somebody’s dead parents’ stuff. One is that an elder lawyer was very helpful—I didn’t know there was such a thing as an elder lawyer—and the other is about keeping a notebook. FAQ. The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #112: Roz Chast. It would have been fiction, like a really bad TV movie of the week. BLVR: Even your parents, who had pensions and scrimped their entire lives, were running out of money. I remember in college going to visit this girl who lived on Long Island. If you’re in the workplace and you have an older parent and you want to take some time off to care for them, you’re not cut a lot of slack. So I didn’t take any of that. Lessons learned from her parents’ deaths: Get a year in your mailbox for only $48 →, Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute. an unpleasant question. Bean like “the good daughter.” I would think about my father and those cold man pants, find out his size from my mother and get him some corduroy pants that were warmer. I probably should have had that conversation with her way earlier. Her memoir combines text, cartoons, sketches and photos to describe her interactions with her parents during the last years of their lives, when their mental and physical health were deteriorating and they became incapable of living alone. It’s closer to my house. I think that was devastating. After talking with her in a quiet corner of the hotel lobby for almost two hours, even more appealing aspects of her personality were revealed. From People Shaping New York Interview: New York Through the Eyes of Cartoonist Roz Chast By Cait Etherington Friday, June 10, 2016 In April, the Museum of the City of New York opened a new exhibit featuring the work of Roz Chast. RC: Maybe. Even before doing cartoons professionally. Her most recent book is The Party After You Left: Collected Cartoons 1995-2003. At the National Book Festival on Sept. 2, Roz Chast will be at the Graphic Novels Stage from 6:25 to 7 p.m. She will sign copies of her books from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Well known as a cartoonist and a humor writer, respectively, Chast and Marx reveal their double lives as a ukelele duo who were superstars in their time. Why aren’t they doing these jobs generally? Bill Franzen They would button up the back. RC: I don’t think my mother would have liked it. RC: Sometimes they were funny. I’ll be a greeter at CVS for tips. BookPage interview by Lynn Green May 2014 Fans of Roz Chast’s cartoons in The New Yorker will not be surprised to learn that her parents were an unlikely couple: Her mother, Elizabeth, was a bossy perfectionist. Things I had never thought about, things I had never heard of. Can you explain that? Fresh Air with Terry Gross, December 30, 2014: Interview with Roz Chast; Interview with Louis C.K.. [Chast, Roz; C.K., Louis; WHYY Public Media; Miller, Danny (Radio producer); Gross, Terry] -- Since its national debut in 1987, Fresh Air with Terry Gross has been a highly acclaimed and much adored weekday magazine among public radio listeners. I was hoping for all of those things that you imagine, where you are going to be this incredibly kind and patient person who will minister to these people who took care of you when you were a baby, who would be so sympathetic to how much pain they were often probably in and how much suffering they were going through, and with my father’s dementia, that I would have nothing but patience, and that possibly I would even take them into our house or even build an addition onto our house. Who does that? RC: I was talking to somebody a few days ago who told me that her parents are in their 80s—and I had this confirmed—and they went to a place voluntarily. Roz Chast is one of The New Yorker’s most enduringly popular cartoonists, beloved for her signature neurotic style and quick wit. It was so awful. I didn’t do that. RC: I sort of don’t want to talk about it, but I also know that unless something happens, this is the direction that I’m going in, that we’re all going in, unless there’s a sudden illness or an air conditioner falls or whatever. All of these traits flow through Chast’s clever hand, resulting in some fourteen books, ranging from compilations of her New Yorker cartoons to several children’s books, one of which is a hilarious romp through the alphabet with Steve Martin. I wish there was no reason to say “it’s o.k. I was doing it for myself, because it was a way for me to remember it. You don’t even know that that’s what people do, that that’s what siblings do. RC: That’s true. Why Bring Up Death When We Could Talk About 'Something More Pleasant'. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. RC: I don’t think she meant to be mean. They had the money, they had to sell their house, they had to totally liquidate everything. So I do want to bring the money aspect out into the open. Chast is one of the most celebrated and beloved cartoonists working in the United States today; she has been publishing with The New Yorker since 1978. The person bonds with their caretaker in a way that they talk to them more than they talk to you. For one: she changes voices. RC: It was about somebody she knew who, when they signed their money over to their daughter, she went out and bought a drawerful of cashmere sweaters. Get this from a library! BLVR: Your mother’s hospitalization reveals the extent of your father’s dementia, which had been hidden by their close relationship. CVS, probably. There's also this relief: It's done; it's finished; it's over. November 26, 2006. Interview: New York Through the Eyes of Cartoonist Roz Chast. Get new table linens for every season! Rosalind "Roz" Chast was the first truly subversive New Yorker cartoonist. Her 1978 arrival during William Shawn's editorship gave the magazine a stealthy punk sensibility. BLVR: The cashmere sweaters—that was a cautionary tale your mother told. RC: When you’re an only child you have no one to bounce your impressions off of. They’re at Google or doing finance. Oh my god! I don’t even know where my mother found these blouses. Chast’s book tours for the memoir have attracted legions of fellow baby boomers who show up ready to unload their own experiences in elder care. A Mother's Suggestions," by Patricia Marx and Roz Chast. BLVR: Before you closed up their apartment, you start going through your parents’ belongings, quickly become overwhelmed and end up getting the super to clear most of it out. She is the author of several cartoon collections and children’s books. She wasn’t continent. RC: Yeah, they were very, very naive. Do I want more stuff in my house when I die? You read books about it and you talk to your friends about it. You might as well just, like, buy a drawerful of cashmere sweaters because it doesn’t matter all. My parents did were lucky. We would go to Morty & Eddie’s and get a malted or a malted and a grilled cheese and we’d share. At this point she was just lying in bed. Readers might think you were exaggerating if you drew pocketbooks taking up an entire double bed, the Crazy Closet and stacks of empty egg crates in the fridge. She will be discussing and signing her terrific new book, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? Almost every single day there was a letter. Read an excerpt of Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? And, unlike some interviewees, who want to portray themselves in their most flattering light, she cusses unapologetically. They were from another generation where you wanted that. She had diverticulitis. RC: I did get a few things—this box of letters they had written to each other in World War II. Sometimes I'm horrified when I look back on this. At the end of his life he sort of discovered the joy of Velcro sneakers because I think they were easy on, easy off, and they gave him some cushioning on his feet and they were comfortable. I didn’t just follow the child rearing practices of my parents. From NOAD: noun FAQ [with pronunciation as an initialism]: a list… How has that affected your post-retirement plans? The book begins when her parents were still living in Brooklyn apartment where she grew up, and follows them as they move into assisted living, have repeated stays in the hospital and finally are moved into hospice. They didn’t want to know and it was a very unpleasant topic. There I am thinking, "Oh my God, $14,000 a month. Roz Chast video interview. I don’t even know if they knew that their room didn’t come with furniture. She was who she was. They want everything, everything, everything. BLVR: The title of the book is about not talking about something unpleasant. And I’ve heard things. This was a particularly hard time of life for everybody. I mean, I don’t know shit about this subject. BLVR: You try to reconcile your feelings toward your mother, saying “I wished we could have been better friends.” But she, in essence, blows you off. It brings up everything. RC: It was a mix. to let go.” It would be, “Please don’t let go, please stay, don’t die, never die. BLVR: Your father’s tear-filled face yelling ‘Elizabeth!’ upon seeing her return from the hospital is the only time you devote a single page to an event. By Cait Etherington In April, the Museum of the City of New York opened a new exhibit featuring the work of Roz Chast. Her book is funny, heartbreaking and unflinching in dealing with her parents' stubbornness and denial as they became frail, and her own feelings of guilt that no matter what she did she wasn't doing enough to help them. Because I had felt for so many years that there was this sense of going through this whole passage, this whole last part of their lives, and all the emotional and practical difficulties of that. After talking with her for this interview for nearly an hour, even more appealing aspects of her personality are revealed: for one, she has many comic voices. How did you envision yourself as a caregiver and how was the reality different? ROZ CHAST hates Halloween. They didn’t see their behavior as being funny. They kept notebooks of every nickel they spent, and these habits of frugality from having grown up so poor never left them. If you think it really matters that you’re saving for your old age or your children or anything like that, that’s a laugh. That’s cliché, I know, but it’s taking advantage of people. By Jaime Herndon. This bestselling graphic memoir is quite unique as it deals honestly with personal and emotional issues of caregiving for aging parents, and on the way covers many issues that geriatricians and palliative care specialists deal with on a regular basis. My relationship with my parents was complicated for a lot of reasons. What is the logic of telling people “it’s o.k. And I found them all in plastic bags, totally unworn. If you could just will yourself to stay alive. You just get so completely screwed. I am the most disgusting person in the world because at least they saved it and it's their money and it went to help take care of them.". Yet, once again, the job of wiping somebody’s bottom is left up to women and women of color. The idea of [sing-song voice]:  “I am my own person!” I mean, my husband and I travel separately sometimes. And then you think, "God, I'm disgusting. Which is why it always made it fun for me to draw them.It was the same thing with their apartment. And I liked drawing them. BLVR: What was so appealing about your parents as subjects? “Don’t neglect buses,” it cautions of New York City’s most maligned form of public transportation. I am pleased to report that Roz Chast the person is just as funny and witty and ironic as you would expect her to be from her work (which is not always the case). But we don’t do very well in this society with people who are old. I felt like I was at the world’s fair, like [1950s broadcaster voice] “Future Pavilion!” The idea of keeping appliances out on the counter because they had a big kitchen—they had like a blender that was always out—was like a miracle. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? To get into this place cost $450,000. That was incredible. In it, Chast focuses solely on her parents, a couple who “aside from WWII, work, illness and going to the bathroom did everything together.” Only here her parents—longtime favorite subjects, who have appeared in countless depictions since she published her first cartoon in the New Yorker, in 1978—have the spotlight all to themselves.