Earth to Moon - a memoir by Moon Unit Zappa
Earth to Moon - a memoir by Moon Unit Zappa
Earth to Moon – a memoir by Moon Unit Zappa
Dey Street Books
Hardcover – 368 pages
ISBN – 10: 0063113341
ISBN – 13: 978-0063113343
Earth to Moon is a very affecting book full of characters that you might think you already know along with a supporting cast of new characters and celebrity cameo appearances. It’s a memoir that will make you occasionally laugh but also make you angry, sad, and reflective about many aspects of life. This is the story of Moon Unit Zappa, the first child of musical genius/social satirist/cultural icon Frank Zappa and his wife, Gail. Frank and Gail are gone. They were broken people. How do I know this? Because broken people break other people. Moon was a victim but also is a survivor – and if her story doesn’t touch you, well you just might be broken, too.
One of the truly remarkable things about Moon’s story is her tenacious struggle to love in the midst of as dysfunctional a family situation as you can imagine. And even though ‘broken people break people’ they weren’t able to break Moon – but not for lack of trying, and not for lack of causing hard emotional damage along the way. Moon, a gifted communicator, allows the reader into her brain from early childhood all the way through her adult years. We can closely identify with the mental pain and frustration as the oldest of the Zappa children takes the brunt of the emotional and situational manipulations of a mentally unbalanced mother and a largely-absent father. In effect, Moon becomes co-parent as well as older sister to sibs, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva.
Moon writes with bluntness but eloquence, her narrative style is laced with humor and introspection despite the difficulties of the relationships detailed here. The writing style is engaging and emotionally transparent. The reader gets the chance to grow up with Moon – to see her world through her eyes, through adolescence, self-image woes, and learning about sexual and spiritual issues. Eventually, a measure of success comes (and just as easily seems to slip away) as she enters into the LA entertainment community, has a one-hit-wonder success with the song “Valley Girl” (the result of a desperate attempt to at least get some studio-time with Frank), and achieves a degree of independence. This is interrupted by legal issues and debt stemming from Gail’s mis-management of Frank’s business affairs and her continuing emotional strangle-hold on her children, insisting that it’s their responsibility to bail out the Zappa empire.
In my review of Frankie and Bobby – Growing up Zappa, the memoir of Frank’s younger brother Bobby, I wrote about “Frank's often confrontational relationship with his father - a traditionally authoritarian 'Italian Dad,' who resented any questioning or deviation from his plans, regardless of their effect on the family…” and we see the fruits of that situation years later here in Moon’s book. Father issues are notorious for creating emotional walls and all kinds of defense mechanisms - In Frank’s case emotional isolation and caustic humor. Moon wanted a dad but Frank wanted to work in the studio, go out on tour, and live out the sexual fantasies of a grown-up adolescent. It’s not a pretty picture. Gail resented this, but also allowed it, causing her to build her own set of defenses. Moon was in the middle, wanting a dad who wasn’t there and catching the harshness and resentment of a decidedly strange and emotionally cruel mother. In the Zappa home there wasn’t even the verbal use of ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ – it was Gail and Frank. Emotional distance. No wonder she often ‘spaced out,’ prompting her mother’s repeated taunt – “Earth to Moon!” hence - the title of this book.
Mother issues. Father issues. They mold us, for better or worse, and tend to haunt us for the rest of our lives. From the first chapter of Earth to Moon: “If …you knew my dad’s softer side, you’d know my middle name was bestowed upon me because my arrival heralded our foray into becoming a family unit. I will automatically feel an unspoken, steadfast, ferocious loyalty to my family – the unit part – and pull to be like the actual moon, with no light of my own, just an ancillary object in the infinite reflecting of the light of the sun, a.k.a. the light of my heavenly father, Frank, orbiting his every need and expression.” Wow. Interesting turn of phrase. In scripture God calls himself Father – and our relationship with our earthly father can color our relationship to God. No wonder Moon looked for spiritual connections – not always with the desired outcomes.
Frank died at an early age – way too early. Moon covers that particular painful grieving and how his slow and steady decline from cancer finally allowed to spend some time with him. His death turned one page, but the following 22 years still held unpleasant surprises as Gail manipulated the estate, effectively hiding Frank’s desire for an equal split and causing divisions between the siblings. Meanwhile, Moon marries and has a child, Mathilda. Gail pretty much announces she’s not going to be into the grandma thing. In a heart-wrenching section of the book, young Mathilda ends up sick in intensive care with multiple infections and other issues including a collapsed lung. Moon describes the agony, anger, helplessness and fear in a palpable way that any parent will relate to. Thankfully, Mathilda survives – but Moon’s marriage does not. Leaving many loose ends and much in-fighting, Gail passes 22 years after Frank. “At the end of her life,” writes Moon, “I can finally say the M-word. Because she can’t hurt anymore…”
Today, Moon seems happy and productive – certainly free (to some extent) from the crippling burden of anticipating what emotional one-two punch might come next from Gail. Certainly, legal issues linger from the fallout of Gail’s manipulations over Moon, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva but a clear road ahead seems possible. There’s a theory claiming that abusers will abuse (broken people break people) but there are also those that become the opposite of what they endured. Moon is a chain-breaker. As you read the layers and layers of hurt in her story her ability to ultimately forgive is that much more astounding. Writing Earth to Moon must have been a cathartic exercise for Moon Zappa, who held back nothing in the telling of her story. It’s raw, sometimes humorous, sad, touching and occasionally properly angry. As you might expect, it’s peppered with its fair-share of F-bombs (and other expletives) and doesn’t spare certain gritty details. Life can be messy. But also, good. I hope Moon gets some of the good now – and gets to feel the closeness and love of her other ‘Father in heaven.’
I offer Moon a quote from Nick Vujicic: “I just hope people see that if God can do something beautiful with my broken pieces, then God truly has a plan for each of us.”
– Bert Saraco
