Family Secrets: Ronald Reagan's Daughter Speaks Out By Patti Davis
Family Secrets: Ronald Reagan's Daughter Speaks Out
The Raw, Uncompromising Insider Account of Psychological Estrangement, Dysfunctional Dynamics, and the Hidden Scars of a White House Family
The Raw, Uncompromising Insider Account of Psychological Estrangement, Dysfunctional Dynamics, and the Hidden Scars of a White House Family
Bibliographic Specifications
- Title: Family Secrets: Ronald Reagan's Daughter Speaks Out
- Author: Patti Davis
- Publisher: Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd, London
- Publication Date: 10 July 1992
- ISBN-10: 0283061308
- ISBN-13: 9780283061301
- Edition Details: First UK Hardcover Edition, First Printing.
- Binding: Original publisher’s premium cloth-bound hardcover casing with crisp silver-stamped spine lettering.
- Physical Format: Octavo (8vo), 282 pages. Generously enhanced with custom historical endpapers and select private family archival photograph portfolios mapping the Reagans' domestic history.
- Language: English
Official Condition Report
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The Book: Used – Near Fine (NF)
- Exterior / Boards: The original cloth hardcover casing is in pristine, mint condition. The front and back panels are beautifully flat, structurally robust, and flawlessly square at all corner tips. The binding remains completely unyielding and shows zero vertical spine-lean, crushing, or core degradation.
- Interior: The internal text block is exceptionally clean, bright white, and tight. All 282 internal leaves are perfectly intact and remain entirely free of user highlighting, ink signatures, ex-libris library stamps, dog-eared foldouts, or standard dealer pencil markings. A well-sheltered, showroom-grade copy.
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The Dust Jacket: Used – Near Fine (NF)
- Condition Detail: The original illustrated paper dust jacket is present, whole, and completely intact under a protective Cellophane cover. The jacket faces show only very limited, superficial signs of standard shelf wear, keeping its striking design features and primary colors bright and striking. Completely free of sun-fading, chips, or heavy edge tears.
Synopsis & Historical Value
Published in 1992—released in the immediate wake of her father's departure from the presidency—Family Secrets stands as one of the most explosive, raw, and deeply harrowing memoirs of a political dynasty ever written. In this searching autobiography, Patti Davis, daughter of former US President Ronald Reagan, strips away the meticulously curated public image of America's first family to examine the profound emotional and ideological conflicts that unfolded behind the closed doors of their home in Pacific Palisades.
Bypassing standard political public relations spin, Davis delivers a stark self-portrait of an unusual girl trapped within a deeply disturbed family structure. She examines the family dynamics with absolute candour, tracing the source of lifelong parental discomfort back to the moment of her birth, seven months after the Reagans' marriage—a timeline her parents publicly claimed was premature. The narrative charts a harrowing domestic landscape, revealing how her mother, Nancy, could be strong one minute and cruel the next, and how her father, emotionally scarred by his own childhood in an alcoholic home, completely abandoned his daughter emotionally. It is a gripping story of bitter rivalries, uncontrollable rage, and destructive impulses, where Davis courageously exposes painful family secrets alongside her own battles with drug addiction, promiscuity, and suicidal urges. This premium first-edition hardcover collectible copy is a vital used collectible book that serves as an indispensable primary historical archive for political historians and biography purists alike.
Author Profile: Patti Davis
Patti Davis (born Patricia Ann Reagan) is an accomplished American author, novelist, and actress. As the daughter of US President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan, she occupied a unique, high-stakes position at the absolute epicenter of modern global history. Renowned for her independent spirit and fierce counter-culture positions, she became a prominent public activist during the 1980s, famously speaking out against nuclear proliferation and her father's administration's executive policies.
Davis’s unique literary talent allows her to cut through standard media legends to present complex cultural figures with absolute psychological depth. Over her illustrative writing career, she has authored numerous critically acclaimed bestsellers, novels, and autobiographical chronicles, including The Way I See It. Her expert handling of complex family sociology and first-hand institutional trauma transforms a celebrity childhood into a highly polished, definitive historical record that remains highly prized by antiquarian book collectors worldwide.
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