Moon Unit Zappa recently told Mojo magazine that writing this eye-popping memoir was like “spelunking in hell”. As her tale of growing up in a rock’n’roll family wends on, you wonder how the eldest child of LA musician Frank Zappa and his manager Gail survived decades of deeply iffy parental behaviour and the complex dynamic it seeded between her and her creatively named siblings.
There’s some context to be aware of: Zappa’s warring offspring only settled a long-running feud about their father’s estate in 2019 (Frank died of cancer in 1993 and Gail passed away in 2015). This acrimonious legal saga was all the more remarkable for being engineered by Gail, when, according to Moon, she ignored Zappa’s will and gave her younger children, Ahmet and Diva, greater control over the Zappa family trust than Moon and her brother Dweezil.
At the time of the book going to print, relations were still strained. But you suspect this often affectionate portrait of four innocents growing up in a reality distortion field is something of an olive branch, with a note attached reading: look at what we made it through.
The household was chaotic, with regular mealtimes a rarity; Frank and Gail – the kids used their first names – were “pagan absurdists” who eschewed alcohol and hard drugs but made use of Ouija boards and put “orgy artwork” on the walls. Reliving the height of the loopiness – when these two solipsistic parents were raising four small people in a tableau populated by liggers, fortune tellers and mistresses in Germany and New Zealand – must have dredged up a lot of semi-processed trauma for Moon.
Now 56, she is a yoga teacher, writer, erstwhile actor as well the co-author of a 80s novelty pop hit. There is an eye-rolling generosity to this sad and funny tale that might not have been so easily accessed in earlier times, when she had three psychotherapists on the go just to help her recover from the latest cult in which she had become enmeshed. “For better or worse, whether by accident or on purpose, I’ve been primed to obey charismatic leaders and follow nonsensical rules,” Moon writes, of time spent with a guru-like acting teacher and in an ashram.
The dramatis personae are all huge characters. Zappa senior – moustachioed leader of the band the Mothers of Invention – didn’t communicate, went on tour often or holed up in his studio, giving only breadcrumbs of attention to his brood who were raised to tiptoe around his genius and timetable. When guests came, he was in the habit of tweaking the nipples of female visitors as a greeting. It’s difficult, decades on, to appreciate his pioneering, jazz-influenced work when his tracks were called things like Titties and Beer.
Hard-headed pragmatist Gail, meanwhile, was a strong, dungaree-clad, chain-smoking woman in an apparently impossible position. But she made choices: she indulged her errant spouse and parented by whim. “Earth to Moon” was what Gail would say to her eldest daughter when she wanted to impart hard truths or take her down a peg.
Moon envied her friends’ normal families, normal schools and normal healthcare while she stumbled through childhood trying to hold things together, ignoring all the sex noises, shouting and unreliability. She had been told by a psychic that she had special powers. Confirmation, in Moon’s mind, came when a mean girl fell off some play equipment. It represented some much longed-for agency – but of the wrong kind.
While her cystic acne went untreated by western medicine, and her period arrived with scant guidance from her mother, Moon remained eager to please, consoling Gail as the mistresses encroached and Frank threatened divorce. When his German girlfriend Gerda unexpectedly sends cream for Moon’s rebellious skin, her shock that an enemy could do such a considerate thing crackles off the page.
Naturally, young Moon worships her father. In 1982, they put out a single together, Valley Girl, poking fun at the California teen slang of the time. Unexpectedly, it was a massive hit; nominated for a Grammy, it lost to Eye of the Tiger. (“No one checks to see if I am OK with all this,” writes Zappa, of her bewildered self-consciousness.) Gail ensured her daughter was properly credited and earned her own royalties. But Moon’s burgeoning profile, and the time she spent with Frank, inspired vindictive jealousy as well.
The book remains engrossing even as the music fades. Moon ping pongs from castings to MTV jobs, trying to carve out her niche, finding adult life as difficult and unsettling as the years spent propping up the family firm.
When her own daughter has a life-threatening illness and Moon’s marriage begins to fray, some belated sanity arrives in the form of a nonviolent communication parenting course. Boundaries, she learns to her surprise, might not be such a bad thing after all.
• Earth to Moon by Moon Unit Zappa is published by Dey Street (£22). To support the Guardian and the Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
