Orion Earth to Moon

The saying goes that "God only gives you what you can handle." Well, God didn't grow up in my atheist, Wiccan, fame-laden, oversexed, teetotaling, drug-free, cloistered, chaotic, non-communicative, workaholic, feral-feeling house. For Moon Unit, daughter of musician Frank Zappa and his manager, Gail, processing a life so unique, so punctuated by the whims of creative urges, the tastes of popular culture, and the calculus of celebrity, has at times been eviscerating. But it is her deep sense of humor and unshakeable humility that keeps her—and this memoir—pinned to the ground.

A child star at age 14 after her accidental international hit single (recorded with her father), "Valley Girl," turned her into a reluctant celebrity, Moon Unit Zappa's life has been utterly extraordinary from her birth in 1967 into a family that was already blessed and cursed as music royalty thanks to the acknowledged genius of Frank. But what are the consequences of growing up in a family that spends most of their time naked, arguing about sexual and extra-marital liaisons, and practicing white magic in a free-for-all state of nonconformist, virtuoso abandon?

"Earth to Moon" is a reckoning with self-esteem, the ghosts of the past, and a mother and father who, in the process of leaving their mark upon the world, scarred their first daughter on home soil. Brutally self-deprecating and funny as hell, it belies a rose-tinted perspective on the 70s and 80s West Coast American scene, from within the belly of the beast of the rock and roll world.