Moon Unit Zappa was often asked this question, especially during the “Valley Girl” years: “What was it like growing up with Frank Zappa as a father?”
The eldest daughter of the quirky and unconventional music visionary, who died in 1993 at the age of 52, gives the world a detailed, nuanced, often funny and often painful answer to that question in her new memoir, “Earth to Moon,” out Tuesday.
The book’s title expresses the power of her life’s journey. Her mother, Frank’s second wife Gail, often used the phrase to scold her as a child – “Earth to Moon, the Earth doesn’t revolve around you” – but as Moon, now 56, matured, it came to symbolize the grounding energy that comes from appreciating your place on the planet. She punctuates her book with clever space-themed sections, photos and old journal entries.
“Love yourself, love yourself, love yourself” is one of her “great insights”.
Moon Unit has suffered many wounds. She describes a childhood full of confusion and disappointment, caring for and protecting her younger siblings – Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva – while her own big life questions were barely answered by her absent-minded father and fickle mother.
Take sex, for example. She was regularly subjected to her father’s scantily clad groupies, was naked in the house, and could hear her parents’ sex (and arguing) through the walls, but had no idea how to use a tampon. The same was true of money. Although Moon had amassed a nest egg large enough to buy her own house (“Oh my God!”) from the Grammy-nominated 1982 hit “Valley Girl,” which she and her father released, she never had “normal” childhood experiences like allowance and housework, and struggled to hold down a steady job.
Growing up in 1970s Hollywood, however, she also interacted with many other celebrities. Actors Justine and Jason Bateman are friends, she knows Michael J. Fox as “Mike,” her brother Dweezil dates Molly Ringwald (and later VJs on MTV), and in one hilarious scene, she chases her crush Jon Bon Jovi to attend a charity event, only to find they’re down on their luck. Moon also relieves her stress by attending live comedy shows with newcomers like Chris Rock and Janeane Garofalo.
In his 1989 book, The Real Frank Zappa Book, Frank admits that he is grumpy, has a poor attitude toward “typical family life,” has no “friends,” and has no time for “social activities.” (Quotations his.) “However, I have a wonderful wife and four totally incredible children, and that, folks, is much better,” he writes. Frank Zappa explains that he treats his children like people — that is, like adults — and believes, “Whatever they’re going to do in life, they’re going to do it regardless of the upbringing at home.”
Moon Unit describes these traits as having left her yearning for more of his time, his attention, his approval. She and her mother clash frequently as they navigate Frank’s long absences, affairs, and occasional bombshells (such as a possible presidential run or “Moon, I have cancer”).
In one poignant episode, Moon describes being overcome by fear of death as a child. She dares to venture into Frank’s basement hideout to seek comfort from her father, but he turns her away and tells her to just not think about it. Back in her room, she imagines what it would be like to be her father and just not be afraid. She listens to his music and pretends he is telling her a story.
“I hear the notes of his song story and my breathing slows. My body feels heavy now,” she writes. “My eyes close to the night and the darkness. I keep listening, letting my father’s music envelop me like tangled seaweed, and the music and my steady heartbeat intertwine until sleep pulls me under the covers.”
Perhaps her greatest disappointment is her mother’s now widely publicized decision to make Ahmet and Diva “sole and exclusive managers of all business dealings” related to Frank after her death. She and Dweezil were given no decision-making authority over the family home, her father, or her surname, which led to deep self-examination.
Moon says she is estranged from her two youngest siblings, and for different reasons than Dweezil, but she writes that she is on the road to healing. She is a mother, writer, actress, comedian, artist, podcaster, and “tea baroness.”
One of the things she has learned is that growing up doesn’t end with growing up. She writes: “The way out is through. Make peace with what hurts and turn to joy.”
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