Book Review: Earth to Moon

From daughter of musical visionary Frank Zappa. Moon Unit Zappa, comes a memoir of growing up in her unconventional household in 1970s Los Angeles, coming of age as part of the MTV generation in the 1980s as the “Valley Girl,” and finding herself after losing her father, then her mother, and the fracturing of her longest relationships.

Earth to Moon, the memoir of Moon Unit Zappa, was published August 20, 2024. Dey Street Books provided a galley for review.

Growing up, I never got into the music of Frank Zappa. It was always a bit out there for me. My older brother might have had some of his records though. For me, what came into my radar was the 1982 song "Valley Girl", written by Frank and featuring Moon Unit on vocals. That clicked for me since a) I was a teen myself at the time and b) the whole valley asthetic was prevasive in popular culture at the time. I know those lyrics by heart.

Thanks to an episode of Ahmet Zappa's "Rocktails" I was made aware of this book. I was fascinated by Moon's discussion with the guys about it and, thus, felt I had to go to check it out.

Although our worlds were so far apart, we both come from Generation X - the kids that often had to grow-up to take care of themselves due to working parents. We had to figure out a lot of things for ourselves, relying upon deduction, logical inferences, and trial-and-error to get by. We also maybe could have used a bit more of our parents' attention and affections; we had to take what we could get.

The latter chapters dealing with parenting and her daughter's health hit home hard for me. So too did the revelation of Gail's final act against Moon and Dweezil (I can very much relate to this).

Moon's writing is straight-forward, honest and often hilarious in a dark comedic way. There are so many touchstones that those who grew up in the 70's can easily relate; they need no in-depth details. As the kids today say, IYKYK (if you know you know).

Overall, I found this to be a very enjoyable memoir. I learned a lot and came away with some things to ponder as well.