My Brother Was a Mother: A Zappa Family Album

Rating:
Summary: Delirante
Review: Una colgada contando la vida de un tipo que odió siempre a los colgados. Cuando llega la muerte de FZ y la tipa sigue el libro porque cuenta sus encuentros con él después de muerto es ya de flipar.
Interesante sólo antropológicamente para alucinar con la clase de especímenes que puede llegar a crear Norteamérica y científicamente para comprobar que idénticos genes pueden configurar personalidades casi antagónicas.

Rating:
Summary: Finally - The Zappa Family Album!
Review: At last, we finally get insight on what it was like growing up with Frank Zappa from the person most qualified to speak about it - his sister Patrice (Candy) Zappa. Since we all came from families, Candy generously shows us what her family looked like and how they lived. This human element is something that is lacking in books today. Sure, Candy talks about herself and her brother Frank, but that's what you would expect from a family-type book like this anyway. Hard-core fans will come away with something they didn't know about Frank Zappa, and almost all of the early photos of Frank have not been seen before. On the basis of that alone, it's worth far more than the cover price. The rest of it is the icing on the cake. Just as important, Candy is a very talented vocalist that can stand on her own. Great work and highly recomended.

Rating:
Summary: Not Zapped by me
Review: I bought this book for my husband who is a Zappa fan. I have never been. Give me Peter, Paul and Mary......however, I did find that there is more to someone's life than a slanted version by someone out to make a buck. Pictures can show a thousand words as we all know, and this book is one of those. It is most interesting to find that not every book has to be 3 inches thick with words that mean nothing. I was able to visualize Frank, his family and his life. Though I know nothing of him or his family, I think I can see that he came from strong roots with a love a desire that did not stop his music or his lifestyle.
I am not here to judge him, the author, or anyone else, but to let others know that this is certainly a book well worth the money. As an avid reader of biographies and autobiographies I thank you for the format to express my opinion. Karen M

Rating:
Summary: Not Zapped by me
Review: I bought this book for my husband who is a Zappa fan. I have never been. Give me Peter, Paul and Mary......however, I did find that there is more to someone's life than a slanted version by someone out to make a buck. Pictures can show a thousand words as we all know, and this book is one of those. It is most interesting to find that not every book has to be 3 inches thick with words that mean nothing. I was able to visualize Frank, his family and his life. Though I know nothing of him or his family, I think I can see that he came from strong roots with a love a desire that did not stop his music or his lifestyle.
I am not here to judge him, the author, or anyone else, but to let others know that this is certainly a book well worth the money. As an avid reader of biographies and autobiographies I thank you for the format to express my opinion. Karen M

Rating:
Summary: From Lumberton to Charlotte
Review: I have read the following books by or about Frank Zappa. In addition, this list constitutes a ranking of my assessment of the quality of these books.

1. THE REAL FRANK ZAPPA BOOK by Frank Zappa and Peter Occhioigrosso
2. MOTHER! THE FRANK ZAPPA STORY by Michael Gray
3. FRANK ZAPPA: THE NEGATIVE DIALECTICS OF POODLE PLAY
4. ELECTRIC DON QUIXOTE: THE DEFINITIVE STORY OF FRANK ZAPPA by Neil Slaven
5. NECESSITY IS... THE EARLY YEARS OF FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION by Billy James
6. COSMIK DEBRIS: THE COLLECTIVE HISTORY AND IMPROVISATIONS OF FRANK ZAPPA by Greg Russo
7. NO COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: THE SAGA OF FRANK ZAPPA by David Walley
8. MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER by Patrice "Candy" Zappa
9. THEM OR US by Frank Zappa
10. UNDER THE SAME MOON by Suzannah Thana Harris
11. BEING FRANK: MY TIME WITH FRANK ZAPPA by Nigery Lennon

When I purchased MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER from Amazon, I thought the theme was a cute idea -- until I read the Preface. The Preface made the entire enterprise sound uncomfortably exploitive. I was particularly distressed when I noticed that Nigey Lennon wrote the Forward. I disliked her book entitled, BEING FRANK. I was deeply offended by Lennon's portrayal of Frank Zappa, and as a result didn't write a review of it. I feared that MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER was going down the same path. Fortunately, it didn't.

I brought MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER to keep my mind occupied on a plane trip from Lumberton, NC to Washington, DC via Charlotte, NC. I was able to complete the entire book (87 pages) within the Lumberon/Charlotte leg (20 to 30 minutes). Thus, this book isn't long enough to be a good plane book. Regardless, I genuinely enjoyed it.

MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER offers some insight that others book about Frank Zappa do not. For example, I was intensely interested in reading about the conflictual relationship between son and father. Most of us who were reared in the 60's had the same experience with our parents. In one particular circumstance, Candy didn't offer adequate details. Rock history records Frank's arrest for producing an adult film. His dad bailed him out of jail. I wish that Candy would have developed a deeper insight into the dynamics of the father/son relationship. In the book she describes the contempt for each had for the other, but when the rubber hits the road, a good dad will come to the aid of his son. Later, the son will come to the aid of his dad. Even if the son is Frank Zappa! Candy should have addressed this incident in greater detail.

All and all, this is a worthy read and should be included into everyone's Frank Zappa library. Last word, I think my copy is autographed by the author. With a felt tip pen, "Candy" is inscribed on the over page. Is that possible?


Rating:
Summary: TO GREAT FOR WORDS
Review: I really enjoyed this book! I loved the way the suthor went in to the history of Frank's family. It was an enjoyable experience, I found out alot of things that I never knew about. I loved it from begining to the end. Candy, she is a star in her own right. I would advise everyone to pick this book up.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of $$$ -- don't even bother
Review: Let me put it this way -- I bought one copy for my husband and one copy as a gift for an acquaintance...and I'm sending them both back to Amazon.

The out of focus photo on the front cover should have been my first clue that this book was an amateur vanity book (it's a photo of Zappa and author/sister Candy). Trouble is, it's not even a vanity book about Frank; instead, it's more about the author/sister who I couldn't care less about. More specifically, what you'll find in this book are all black and white snapshots, 99% of them of old relatives and pictures of sister/author Candy and her kids. And, literally, only a smattering pictures of Frank, himself -- mostly as a young child, two as an adult. The accompanying text is irrelevant to anybody looking for insight into Frank Zappa. I was shocked to see Frank being exploited by his own sister.

Real Frank Zappa fans would do better to look to the many other books that have chronicled his genius and amazing career.

Rating:
Summary: My Brother Was a Mother: A Zappa Family Album
Review: This book is a true gift to all Zappa fans from one Zappa who knows, and speaks,the truth!!! I think it's wonderful to see old family photos and the current ones. If you ever have the opportunity to see Candy Zappa perform, you will appreciate her book that much more and realize that she is a legend in her own rights. The respect she portrays for her brother then, AND STILL to this day, is very heartwarming. I think Frank would be very proud of his sister and her honest portrayal of the TRUE Zappa family. Thank you Candy.

Rating:
Summary: A treasure-trove of photos & new family insight
Review: Zappa followers have been seeing the same handful of photos from Frank's youth over and over since David Walley's early 70's biography. This book increases that collection by a staggering 2000% or so! Really striking is how the photos hint at a more middle-class and happy family existence than Frank seemed to have wanted us to believe. The scores of photographs of his parents, grandparents and other relatives form a new basis for biography fitting Frank's status as a great 20th Century musician that the world slowly seems to be discovering.

Frank was a private person and glimpses into what kind of person he was, as a human like you and me, are rare. Along with Nigey Lennon's BEING FRANK, this book offers some insights that make for enjoyable reading. That being said, the literary aspriations of this book are fairly modest. Candy Zappa knew her brother from afar, and has just a handful of anecdotes pertaining to Frank's family life and her contact with him. She doesn't try to make it any more than that, and she tells her story in her language, with her own coloquialisms, with no nods to the literary sheen that biographies are "supposed" to have.