Earth to Moon: A Memoir

In this outstanding debut, Zappa chronicles her unconventional upbringing as the daughter of musician Frank Zappa. Born in 1967 L.A., Zappa reflects on being raised by parents who insisted she and her three siblings call them by their first names and taught them to use profanity. Though Zappa expresses ambivalence about the “chaotic, full-throttle” household of her youth (she was left naked in a room of strangers at two, then told to lighten up when she mentioned the episode to her mother as an adult), she writes rapturously of playing pretend with her siblings, and of the rare occasions when her father wasn’t working and they listened to music together. (They recorded the 1982 hit “Valley Girl” together, though the song’s success intensified existing tensions with Zappa’s music producer mother.) Though Zappa resented her role as the family peacemaker, she reconciled with both of her parents before they died of cancer—her father in 1993, her mother in 2015—but surfed new waves of tumult when probate complications regarding her father’s estate estranged her from her siblings. Zappa’s unvarnished prose and resolve to capture the difficult and beautiful parts of her upbringing with equal clarity elevates this above other memoirs by the children of celebrities. It’s a fascinating window into a complicated family. (Aug.)