Moon Unit Zappa, daughter of the late legendary rocker Frank Zappa recounts her difficult relationship with her father and her mother, Gail Zappa, in ‘Earth to Moon, A Memoir’.

The daughter of the late legendary rocker Frank Zappa recounts her difficult childhood with her dad and her mom, Gail Zappa, in ‘Earth to Moon, A Memoir’

Moon Unit Zappa. Photo: Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic

Moon Unit Zappa is just like us. But then again, she isn’t. She is the daughter of the legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Frank Zappa and at 14, was the featured vocalist on her dad’s only Top 40 hit, 1982’s “Valley Girl.”

But Moon’s extraordinary parentage isn’t what makes her new book, Earth to Moon, A Memoir, out today, so exceptional. There are none of the tropes we’ve come to expect from celebrity-offspring tell-alls — no recollections of violence, no revelations of sexual abuse, no descent into drug and alcohol addiction.

There are, naturally, celebrity encounters and friendships: Erik Estrada, Emilio Estevez, Whitney Houston, Michael J. Fox, Justine Bateman and Woody Harrelson are just a few of the big names who pop up in these pages.

But Earth to Moon is relatable to anyone who grew up feeling like they didn’t quite belong in this world — or even in their home.

‘Earth to Moon, A Memoir, by Moon Unit Zappa.HarperCollins

“This book is really for anybody that felt like an outsider in life, and in their own family,” Moon, 56, tells PEOPLE. “So I think in that way, maybe it can be a universal kind of a story. It just so happens that the players in my story might be celebrities, or there might be extraordinary circumstances that maybe somebody else might not encounter … The book is also about how do you heal and take your own power back when you feel marginalized and demoralized in your own family?”

For Moon, the feeling of being on the outside looking in began with her physically and emotionally distant father, who died from prostate cancer in 1993, and her emotionally absent and abusive mother, Gail, who died in 2015. Those twin disappointments were, in a sense, the motivating factors that drove Moon to write the book.

Even its title was inspired by what her mother would often say to her right before reprimanding her or reminding her that the world did not revolve around her.

Moon Unit Zappa with her mother, Gail Zappa, and her father, Frank Zappa, in 1968.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

“I set out to do a couple of different things with the book,” Moon says. “One of the things was to ask, ‘Is genius worth the collateral damage to family, to your own life path?’ And then, the other thing I was really exploring was what happens when your mother is your first bully. And so those are two themes that I just was kind of trying to explore.”

Moon grew up in the San Fernando Valley (where she found inspiration for the stream-of-consciousness-monologue lyrics of “Valley Girl” in her female classmates), the oldest of Frank and Gail Zappa’s four children. Her siblings are Dweezil, 54, Ahmet, 50, and Diva, 44. Her dad spent most of his time on the road when she was growing up, and her mother, perhaps disappointed with her life as the wife of an unfaithful rock star who was barely around, took her frustrations out on the closest target: her daughter.

One of the most moving moments in the book is when Moon tries to reach out to her father as he lies in bed dying, to start saying all the things that have been unsaid — and he shuts her down.

“I am too sick to do this, Moon,” he says.

“I was gobsmacked,” she says. “I just didn’t think that we wouldn’t resolve everything, because I had a very different relationship with my father [than with my mother]. He never raised his voice once. He was always very direct. He didn’t give time and space for your feelings, but I thought, ‘Okay, he’s home now. This is it. This is the home stretch. If not now, when?'”

“And so I just thought I at least want to apologize for anything I might’ve done, because I thought that I had done something wrong, because the relationship was so unsatisfying to me, and I thought it was me,” Moon continues. “I didn’t realize until much later that that’s just what he chose to do, to just answer to his own creative urges and follow that path, come hell or high water. And on the one hand, I was grateful that he was exactly who he was, nothing hidden, but I didn’t really enjoy not also having my needs met. That’s not a great formula for raising kids, and it doesn’t set a person up well in the rest of their life.”

Moon Unit Zappa (left) and her mother, Gail Zappa, in 2012.Lester Cohen/WireImage

She never resolved things with her mother either, or tell her “first bully” how much emotional damage she had done.

“At the moment that she became ill [with lung cancer], all of the things that I struggled with, I wanted to confront her, but she was at her most vulnerable,” Moon recalls. “And so it seemed that I would be causing a cruelty to really let her have it and say, ‘Here’s all the things that you did that really hurt me.'”

Gail did, however, ask Moon for forgiveness. In a way, an apology without any acknowledgment of why she was sorry or what she had done made things worse, the author recalls.

“What was so awful for me, that I still have nightmares about,” Moon says, “is just this idea that she asked for forgiveness without telling me everything she had done, because at the moment that she became ill, I thought, ‘Okay, there’s an end date on her cruelty, so I can have the endurance to see her through this difficult time, and to reconcile my feelings on my own.'”

From left: Diva Zappa, Dweezil Zappa, Frank Zappa, Ahmet Zappa and Moon Unit Zappa.

But that end date never came. In one final twist of the knife, after Gail’s death, Moon and Dweezil discovered that their mother’s will gave Ahmet and Diva majority control of the Zappa family’s trust — as well as Frank’s creative and financial legacy.

“Once I knew that she asked for forgiveness but didn’t tell me everything that she had done, and she stole my forgiveness, and I was left with my rage, and her wishing me unwell forever, that is something I take to the punching bag, to the mountain and scream,” Moon says. “I’m still like, ‘What?’ I beat her up in dreams. It’s still an ongoing process.”

Selma Blair, Ahmet Zappa to Divorce

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the central relationship in Moon’s memoir isn’t her relationship with her iconic father, but with her mother. In asking the question “Is genius worth the collateral damage?” she is, in a sense, extending grace to Gail. That has been a huge part of her journey toward healing, especially as a mom herself, to daughter Mathilda, 19, whom she shares with her ex-husband, Matchbox Twenty drummer Paul Doucette.

Moon Unit Zappa.

“I had a lot of empathy for Gail, because she was on her own for so much of the time, and dealing with all the business stuff, and dealing with all of us,” Moon says. “And so I understand how challenging that can be. But also, as a parent, part of my healing has been giving my kid what I didn’t receive, and also seeing how easy it is to say sorry when you make a mistake. And so in some ways, I was both angrier later on, and also I had more compassion. So it’s again this paradox of, ‘Wow, I see how hard it was for her’ and ‘Why didn’t she just say sorry, or ask for help, or get help, and on, and on, and on.'”

So if her father were still around, what would she want to tell him? “I wish I’d spent more time with you,” Moon responds without missing a beat.

And what would she say to Gail? Moon ponders the question for several moments before responding: “That’s a tough one. I think I would say, ‘I understand you.'”

Earth to Moon, A Memoir is published by Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, and available wherever books are sold.