"And over 26 years of marriage, Gail played housewife. But in the early years it was for a house full of groupies."

"'A diverse array of horny dreamers, oddballs, misfits, and sycophants freeload on heavy rotation,' Moon describes in her memoir. (They included longtime Zappa bassist Roy Estrada, who was later twice convicted on charges of child molestation.) 'I still wear my pacifier around my neck for security, never knowing who’s safe and who isn’t, who my dad is humping and who he isn’t.' In a 1971 documentary, Frank was asked about his affairs on the road. 'I like to get laid,' he said. What about your wife, the interviewer asked? 'She’s become accustomed to it over a period of years,' says Zappa.... In fact, Gail was bitterly unhappy about his extramarital pursuits and could explode into rages. Moon writes about the time her father asked her to find the gun so her mother couldn’t get her hands on it. 'Gail is on a rampage,' he said. 'I didn’t even know we had a gun,' she writes.... Even after the groupies drifted away, nothing much changed. There was no structure, no family vacations, no PTA meetings. None of the four Zappa children graduated from high school.... Ahmet and Moon... each ran away from home only to find that nobody seemed to notice."

From "Frank Zappa’s kids are still grappling with his legacy — and each other/Like their dad’s oddball rock songs, their family defied description. His music, and their pain, has endured" (WaPo)(free access link).