In Dutch

Ventura County, home to the Ronald Reagan Freeway and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, has a special place in the life story of the 40th president of the United States.

But the much-heralded biography of Ronald Reagan is apparently not finding a place in the libraries of county residents.

Despite the controversy surrounding the book, first-day sales of his biography were underwhelming.

The B. Dalton Bookseller in Simi Valley, the city that is home to the Reagan library where Reagan will be buried one day, sold no copies of Edmund Morris’ “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan” as of 5 p.m. Thursday. A cashier said no customers had even thumbed through it.

At Borders Books in Thousand Oaks, copies were moving slowly. Store officials noted the difference between the book and the scandalous autobiography of Monica Lewinsky, which flew off the shelves its first day.

But assistant manager Denise Williams of the Crown Books store in Ventura believes the tepid early response may have more to do with the audience than the merits of the book.

Most of the 20 to 30 customers who telephoned the Crown store earlier in the week to inquire about the book were either senior citizens or middle-aged folks buying the books for their parents, Williams said. That crowd is more likely to wait a couple of days rather than rush out to stores immediately.

“In the last couple of days people have been asking for it like crazy,” said an employee at Crown Books in Simi Valley. “I’m surprised that we’ve only sold six.”

The Reagan biography has touched off a cultural storm, largely because of the author’s controversial technique.

Morris uses fictional characters to illuminate Reagan’s early years, a device intended to “enrich” the epic story. That technique intrigued some potential readers and turned off others at Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Ventura.

Dave Scott of Oxnard, who saw Morris in a recent television interview, said the author’s commitment to his story more than compensated for his unorthodox technique.

“This man spent years of his life doing this,” Scott said. “He was very credible, listening to him.” Scott doubted he would buy the book, however, because he prefers fiction.

But Mary Ann Fuller of Santa Paula said she will not read the book because she thought the whole thing would be too close to fiction. “I don’t think it’s going to be actual fact.”

Morris also drew controversy because his work often portrays the former president as being out of touch even before his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

In one sequence in the book, Reagan doesn’t recognize his son Michael at the boy’s high school commencement, long before rumors of senility swirled around him.

Some local Republican activists said they were turned off by all the hype.

“Literary controversy is not something I spend a lot of time on,” said Karen Kurta, former chairwoman of the Ventura County Republican Party. “It’s just filler and hype.”

As to the suggestion of Reagan being out of touch, Kurta scoffed.

“That’s a rumor that has been bandied about more than once,” she said. “I didn’t hear anyone saying anything at the time, and that would have been a lot more credible to me.”

Although interest in Ventura County was apparently low, the book was doing well on the bookseller Amazon.com, where it ranked fourth in sales for the day, and was prominently featured on Barnes and Noble’s Web site.

At the Ventura Barnes and Noble, “Dutch” was modestly displayed alongside biographies of Minnesota governor and former wrestler Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Princess Diana and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Officials at the Reagan Library declined to comment on the book, saying no one there had read it.