"What began as a mother’s illustrated mash note to Manhattan becomes a meandering map of Chast's hilarious mental approach to her beloved town, with all of its oddball shops, subterranean secrets and an abundance of visual stimulation." - Washington Post, “10 Best Graphic Novels of 2017”
"[Chast's] Big Apple cityscapes burst with jumbled buildings, oddities of every variety, and her trademark loose-edged-drawn people." - TimeOut NY
"What began as a personal guidebook for Chast's Manhattan-bound suburban daughter evolved into a whimsical, discursive paean to the city . . ." - O, The Oprah Magazine
"The New Yorker magazine cartoonist has a style and sensibility like no one else's. Here she employs it in a graphic memoir of and tribute to New York City. Though she now lives in the Connecticut suburbs, Chast grew up in Brooklyn . . . As her own daughter prepared to move to the city for college, Chast compiled this volume that lets readers see New York through the artist's eyes." - Newsday, "Best Fall Books"
"Illustrator extraordinaire and native Brooklynite Roz Chast's new graphic memoir Going Into Town is a wide-eyed love letter to New York—or, more specifically, the streets, buildings, and sidewalk gum in Manhattan, as seen through the eyes of a Brooklyn family." - New York Magazine, “The Year’s Most Gift-Able Coffee Table Books”
"For New Yorkers, former New Yorkers and wannabe New Yorkers: Going into Town is absolutely laugh-out-loud hysterical." - Associated Press
"Chast's voice and vision make this a singular love letter to a singular city." - starred review, Kirkus Reviews
"Observations and advice on making one's way through the city's diversions are mixed with the quirky character that oozes from the metropolis's every concrete pore. It's all delivered with obvious and knowing affection and captured with a keenly observant pen." - starred review, Publishers Weekly
"Chast applies her appealingly shaggy drawing style and ever-so-slightly skewed worldview to New York’s subways, museums, ethnic restaurants, and other attributes." - Booklist
"For New Yorkers past and present, as well as those who admire the city from afar, this book is sure to delight." - Bookish, "The Must-Read Books of Fall 2017"
"Love New York? So does Roz Chast, and we’re the luckier for it . . . A handy reminder of what makes the city lovable, maddening and a little gross." - The Forward's "These Are the 23 Books You Need to Read this Summer"
"Fans of Chast's bestselling memoir, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, will recognize and enjoy the unique blend of affection and sarcasm that Chast brings to her work while getting to know one of the world's most famous cities." - BookPage
"Feels like a companion piece to E.B. White's seminal Here is New York. Her illustrated compendium is packed with off-kilter but still useful advice . . ." - Conde Nast Traveler
"[A] guide book full of wonder and optimism, a polar opposite of most current-affairs tomes about New York on the shelves today. Even when [Chast] remarks disparagingly about tourists or rodents or trash, it's done with the lightest of touches, graced with vibrating illustrations of herself . . . Curmudgeonly but not the least bit cynical." - The Bowery Boys
"It's quirky and witty, her illustrations are as weird and poignant as always, and, most of all, it's just fun to see what grabs her attention. It will grab yours, too, and change the way you view New York." - Philadelphia Inquirer
"The great New Yorker cartoonist salutes Manhattan." - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "75 books for holiday gift giving"
"Whatever your experience of New York City, Chast will add to it in her inimitable laugh-out-loud way. There may be a better, funnier cartoonist working in the world today, but none that I know of." - Daily Herald, "Book Buzz: What to Read"
"Roz Chast's breezy and winsome jaunt, Going into Town: A Love Letter to New York . . . is a deceptively rich rumination of New York as it exists today." - Jewish Book World
"In nine illustrated chapters, Brooklyn native Chast celebrates Manhattan in all its glory." - Peach
"The wonderful and inimitable Roz Chast introduces her old friend, New York City, in a beguiling way that will illuminate newcomers, prompt old-timers to nod in recognition, and inspire a whole new generation of siamese standpipe buffs." - Luc Sante
11/01/2017
Chast's (Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?) lighthearted tribute to her hometown began as an introduction to the city for her daughter, who was headed to college there. Although a longtime suburbia resident, Chast conjures up a unique vision of New York, as fans of her New Yorker cartoons might expect. Talking standpipes, restaurants selling "gluten-free pho," the worm's nest of subway and utility tunnels beneath the sidewalk, paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art visualized with puckish word balloons, those "West Side Story things" (fire escapes)—there's nothing for Chast not to marvel over about Manhattan. "I really like density of visual information," she says, and her Big Apple cityscapes burst with jumbled buildings, oddities of every variety, and her trademark loose-edged-drawn people. This full-color prose-comics hybrid covers city layout, getting around, things to do and see, food, and apartment life. VERDICT There are New Yorkers, New Yorker wannabes, New York visitors, and the New York curious—so expect demand for Chast's whimsical and helpful smorgasbord of urban goofiness. For another New York perspective, see Julia Wertz's Tenements, Towers & Trash (Xpress Reviews, 9/1/17). [Previewed in Douglas Rednour's "Comics Cross Over," LJ 6/15/17.—Ed.]—MC
