“I’m not sure,” she said by telephone, before a visit to the gall ery, where s he at least perche d at the edge of it . “I love that they did it, but — knock on wood — I’m terrified of medical things.”

We talked to Ms. Chast, 64, about starting out as a cartoonist, why she loves crafting and the thing she hates drawing the most. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

The earliest drawings in the show were made when you were about 3. When did you get the idea that you might become a cartoonist?

I always drew — always, always, always — from when I was really young. As far as thinking of myself as a cartoonist, that started when I was 12 or 13. I loved the underground stuff, and also MAD magazine, with the fake ads and everything else. Some of the sketchbooks in the show are things I did as a teenager to keep myself sane. I can still see things from back then that are very connected to what I do now. For better or worse, I had a style.

One of the notebooks is shown open to a real New Yorker cover that you doctored, inserting a giant woman you drew into a Midtown streetscape, King Kong-style. So maybe that was your unofficial first cover?