Get the latest gossip

Earth to Moon by Moon Unit Zappa review – waspish, funny account of life as Frank Zappa’s daughter

This memoir about being fathered by the 70s rock oddball and ‘pagan absurdist’ is an extraordinary tale of survival

When he laughed at her mimicry of 1980s California teen speak, he got her into the studio to record Valley Girl, a novelty song that surprised him by becoming, in 1982, his only global hit, and by making his daughter, aged 14, a star. I guess that means I am ugly, too.” She bailed out of acting and into ashrams instead, returning home “wearing a Bindi, smiling vacantly and smelling of wet hairy armpit”. By adulthood, she’s had thousands of hours of therapy in elusive pursuit of calm (“make peace with what hurts and move towards joy”, she implores at one point), and emerges from this mess as kind, reasonable and remarkably sane.

Get the Android app