Out to Lunch

with Patti Davis, Reagan's daughter-turned-novelist. Vegetable soup and family politics in Santa Monica,

P. J. CORKERY

Patti Davis—actress, writer, and presidential daughter—has chosen the Cafe Montana, a typically airy spot near her Santa Monica bungalow, to talk about her just-published first novel. The restaurant is on Montana Avenue, a suddenly posh shopping street favored by young-but-doing-O.K. show-biz types; it specializes in generous portions of light cuisine: vegetables, soups, and, maybe on a bold day, Lithuanian meat dumplings.

"This place is my favorite,'' says Patti. "My husband [yoga teacher and kinesiologist Paul Grilley] loves it too. It's our 'local.' ''

There's a line when we arrive, and though the owner recognizes her immediately, Patti Davis waits quietly for her table. We arc far from Beverly Hills.

Patti, not surprisingly, has movie-star looks and skin. For some time she favored a uniform of turtlenecks and army fatigues ("I thought I looked ravishing''); these days she's more chicly dressed, though still not one for designer labels.

She doesn't particularly resemble either parent, though the other customers in the restaurant soon guess her identity, and are yakking about her. She does have her father's laugh, and likes to tell stories and anecdotes.

"Home Front," she explains, "is a novel about a young girl in the sixties whose father is the governor of California. She's opposed to the war in Vietnam. He isn't. So there's conflict. And she becomes involved with a Marine who goes to Vietnam. More conflict. I think it's an interesting story.''

It is also a Sexy book, she says, "not Erica Jong—Beth doesn't go to bed with fifty guys per chapter—but spicy. I like books I can get lost in, the kind that James Clavell, John Irving, Tommy Thompson, and Sidney Sheldon write. I can't stand whiny books where nothing but complaining happens.''

Patti likes to talk, and she nurses her cup of vegetable soup (fresh carrots and cabbage combined in an old Lithuanian recipe with nouvelle cuisine overtones) for an hour and a half. Her enthusiasms are varied and she's straightforward about them. She's fed up with Hollywood, but loves to act. She practices yoga, is a vegetarian, doesn't like small talk, and is knowledgeable and outspoken about nuclear energy, which she opposes.

"I'm thirty-three,'' she says, "not sixteen, so I don't ask permission to speak out or write. By the same token, I make my stands carefully. I don't want people to think I'm just a contrary little girl rebelling against her parents.

"My parents would prefer, once I spoke my mind, that I wouldn't do it again. That's not very logical. But the press is even less logical. They always ask dumb questions about whether or not I'm causing a First Family squabble. Really, who cares? We're talking about the planet, and these guys want to know if my parents and I are still speaking. Our relationship isn't based on politics.

"I hate politics. I hate politics in relationships, I hate politics in getting a job, I hate politics in politics. But I know politics. So there's a lot about politics in $ Home Front.

I "But I've had it with the politics of | the acting business. I'd work very hard ° at getting a job, maybe even just a grunt one. And then I'd get to the set and find hordes of photographers brought in by the producers to take my picture. They were just trying to exploit my father's name to help the show.

"It made me look silly and was unfair to the other actors. How can you be a good journeyman actor when (hey treat you like a celebrity?

"With books, I can control it all myself; there are no other bosses. That's one reason why I took up writing. Because this is my first book, I worked with a co-writer, Maureen Strange Foster. I'd write a chapter, she'd rewrite, then we'd go over it. She's very good at dialogue and very generous as a teacher.

"Interviewers are going to ask me what parts of Home Front are true and what parts aren't. Almost everything in Home Front is based on the kernel of some real incident, but I'm not going to tell.''

After her Spartan lunch, Patti is off to the cleaners. "When you're a satellite celebrity, even daily errands can be an irritation. People in stores are always asking me 'How's the president?' or 'Tell your father I said this and I said that.'

"It can drive you crazy. That's why I like to write. I just sit at my diningroom table and write. My next novel, which I'm writing by myself, is about political intrigue. I can hardly wait to get back to it. I love to write. I get off on it every day."