Girls in the Moon by Janet McNally (review)

The daughter of two rock legends of the ’90s, Phoebe Ferris feels as though she knows nothing about her parents. When her sister, Luna, takes a leave of absence from college to go on tour with her increasingly popular band, Phoebe decides to visit her in New York with the ulterior motive of visiting her estranged father. The family drama unfolds through two voices and two time periods, as readers get the real-time perspective of Meg, Phoebe’s mother, on what it was like to fall in love and try to rear a family in the midst of the unescapable attention of paparazzi and intrusive fans. Meanwhile, Phoebe’s quest is more personal as she charts the ways Luna resembles and differs from each of her parents and considers where she herself might fit into their legacy. McNally crafts a compulsively readable family narrative that revolves around the kind of celebrities people wonder about, placing Meg’s narrative in fleeting conversation with Kurt Cobain’s as well as others and turning rock stars into real people. That said, Phoebe’s story holds appeal for people who have no interest in music or fame, given that we all have families with secrets, choices, and mistakes that we have to confront in our search for a distinct sense of self.