Roz Chast has been publishing cartoons in The New Yorker since 1978 — more than 1,000 of them, each one a miniature study in guilt, anxiety, and the quietly catastrophic realities of domestic life. New Yorker editor David Remnick once called her “the magazine’s only certifiable genius.” On October 17, Chast brings that sensibility to North Adams for an evening with fellow New Yorker cartoonist Jason Adam Katzenstein about the saddest kitchens either of them has ever owned.
About the Show
The program centers on The Two Saddest Kitchens (Bloomsbury), their collaborative graphic novel about the quiet disasters lurking in every kitchen: Tupperware Drawer Tetris, tragic pantries, the secret double life of Mr. Clean, fancy utensils that will never be used, recipes that will never be followed. The book publishes October 6; this North Adams conversation arrives eleven days later. Kirkus awarded it a starred review, writing that “every page of the cartoonists’ colorful work is full of funny observations.” The evening is structured as an interview with MASS MoCA Director Kristy Edmunds, with a book signing in the lobby to follow. Unsigned copies are also available at the event, with a remote signing option.
Katzenstein’s work spans The New Yorker, The New York Times, and MAD Magazine; his 2020 graphic memoir Everything Is an Emergency: An OCD Story in Words and Pictures drew from his own lifelong relationship with OCD, and he teaches as a visiting professor at Wesleyan University. Chast’s body of work is equally substantial: her memoir Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? earned the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize and was a National Book Award finalist. She received the 2023 National Humanities Medal and has published cartoons across nearly 50 outlets in the course of a career now in its fifth decade. The MASS MoCA date follows the tour’s Baltimore stop by three days, with a Seattle engagement to follow in February 2027.
Venue & Logistics
The Hunter Center sits inside MASS MoCA’s former factory complex in North Adams, Massachusetts — a sprawling contemporary art museum that makes for a worthwhile destination in its own right for capital-region visitors. The building rewards early arrival; give yourself time to explore before the 7 p.m. program. The address is 1040 MASS MoCA Way.
Tickets
Advance tickets are $25. Preferred seating is $45 and includes a signed copy of The Two Saddest Kitchens. Unsigned copies are also available for purchase at the event, with a remote signing option. Buy tickets