The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen

by Kevin O'Keefe

Send an e-card for The Average American ! Click here. John Q Public. Plain Jane. The Average Joe. We think we know the type, but have we ever actually met the person? To be the perfectly average American is harder than it might You must live within three miles of a McDonald's, and two miles of a public park; you must be better off financially than your parents, but earn no more than 75,000 a year; you must believe in God and the literal truth of the Bible, yet hold some views that traditional churches have deemed sacrilegious. Equipped with his trusty Mr. Q, a notebook that he has compiled with over 1,000 facts about the Average American, Kevin O'Keefe has completed a tour of America in search of the sublimely ordinary, the man or woman who represents most definitively all that is average in our country. In his travels from New York to Nevada, Pennsylvania to Hawaii, Kansas to Connecticut and beyond, O'Keefe talks business and pleasure with the proprietors of Average Joe and Jane Athletics, visits the polls on election day with the first candidate for the Average American party, bypasses both Peoria and Normal, Illinois (for, as he explains, they are not that normal), watches the magician Myklar the Ordinary wow the kids at a church in rural Maryland, and delivers a fascinating, often surprising, look into the history and culture of the common man and woman. At the end of the road he discovers that the Average American is, up close, rather extraordinary.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology

272 pages, Hardcover

First published October 24, 2005

Reviews

[human · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book was mediocre (ha!) and did not hold my interest for very long. (read: i fell asleep, ahem, multiple times.) unfortunately, i was forced to read the entire thing for a book report (in my hellish statistics class, which is allegedly a math class) (which i also did not get credit for, because my teacher "lost" said report. which was submitted electronically. i still question this) which may have impacted my enjoyment of the book.

that being said, i got the feeling that this book was extremely repetitive and dry apart from the writing style and blatant insertion of facts to make one man's midlife-crisis self-awakening journey relevant to an audience. searching for something like the most average population-defining person of a large nation should have been exciting, or seemed to be to my naive mind, but this book leeched all of the apparent fun out of it through heaping doses of largely unnecessary commentary and lack of a determinable scientific process through which this individual was located (making said report also irritatingly difficult.)

so, how much of my distaste for this book was influenced by the circumstances under which i read it and my hydra-like teacher you ask? well, i can't answer that question because i myself am not sure, but certainly a fair amount. of course, that doesn't mean that this book was in any way tolerable or that i absolve it—rather, it exacerbated the situation and overall proved to be a thoroughly unsatisfying read.

[Jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I heard about this one on NPR, and it was quite a bit less interesting than it sounded.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Other reviews have complained about the volume of statistics presented in this book. I have a fondness for demography, so those didn't bother me (though sometimes I wondered if the author just chose the first reputable source he found). The premise is interesting and the technique--mixing human stories and interesting statistical findings--should have worked, but I wasn't sure it did. The methodology of heading to odd bits of the country to have "ordinary" Americans propose the criteria for the search and the randomness of the human stories themselves didn't hang together into a coherent whole. And the fact that the search ends up where it all began, together with other personal anecdotes (for example, the author has run dozens of marathons and never had to drop out), made it feel like there was a strong strand of his writing that wanted this to be an autobiography rather than social science.

[Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The average American takes a 10.4 minute shower... 86% of those pee in the shower and 67% do not sing in the shower..."

A great little conversation starter for my next party.

It is nice to see some 'myths' exploded and I appreciated the insight into how the media and marketing businesses twist statistics around to suit their own narrow agendas... "you mean JIF really ISN'T the number one peanut butter in America?"

I think where Kevin has stumbled a bit is in trying to make this some kind of spiritual quest. Stick to the task at hand... find the Average American.

I am pleased, although not in the least surprised to find that I am not an 'average American'. For starters... my showers run more than 10 minutes... I don't pee in the shower, although I... but, I digress...

All in all... an interesting read; one which shouldn't be taken too seriously, but with the 'tongue-in-cheek' spirit in which it should be.

After all... is there really an 'average' American... or any other nationality, for that matter? Like snowflakes, we humans are 'no two alike'... unique and special in our own ways.

We are not average or ordinary!

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm always fascinated with people. What are people really like? What are average people really like? What does it mean to be average? From the moment I saw this book, I knew I had to read it.

Later:
What is the average American like? What does he do? Where does he live? O'Keefe sets out to answer these questions. His first stop is the U.S. Census Bureau, home to millions of statistics about Americans. From Washington, his venture becomes serendipitous, traveling to sites he thinks might harbor our average American. O'Keefe reminded me of The Know-It-All author, the fellow who decided to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, the man who spends the entire book telling his readers all the cool facts he learned. O'Keefe is like that, spewing out data and facts on everything from our average American's height and weight to his religious beliefs to his favorite leisure activities. O'Keefe ends up finding the average American in the county next to one in which he grew up and the average American is the man who was his school custodian. A fun read.

[Kellyann · Rating 3 out of 5]

gave up on this book about halfway through the first time when i let myself get way too bogged down in all the statistics it contains. this time around, i allowed myself to "gloss" a bit more and focus on his message, rather than the hard numbers. generally, what I took away is that the vast majority of the stats we're fed about what Americans are like are often simply not true. not a surprise considering you can manipulate numbers to show most anything you want. apparently on average, we're *not* fat, dumb and conservative, which was a relief. in the end, his analysis included about 140 criteria that defined the "average" american and he found one person that met all those criteria. he also gave me a different perspective on what it means to be average/ordinary, namely that it's not such a bad thing.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

5. 1/24/09 The Average American, by Kevin O'Keefe.

This book was boring! I kept plowing through because it seems like the kind of thing I would really like: narrative non-fiction incorporating lots of sociological facts and fun. But it was just dull. Mr. O'Keefe is competent with exposition and reporting his search for the country's most statistically average person, but when he tries to tie it into some kind of personal, spiritual quest for himself, he just sounds like a douche. Also, he doesn't give enough information about himself to make you even care about him. So when he finally does determine that Bob Whatever is the most average guy ever, then the revelation is kind of "great, now the book must be over soon."

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was ok. It came up with a "crazy" idea and followed through with it and so for that, I give the guy props. I could have read an academic article or the last two chapters of the book and been equally satisfied but I did read almost every page of the book. I'm not sure if the author hit all the notes regarding his carthasis of being ordinary.

If anything (at all) to say about this book, when I told people I was reading this book, it made me realize all the very negative connotations of being "average" which if you follow the author's train of thought is both difficult and good to attain. I did make me think, a bit.

[Nicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like the premise of this book was really interesting, but the way the author carried out his research seemed a little haphazard to me. All the statistics about "average" Americans were neat, but I wish he would have put more effort into a better explanation of why the "most average American" couldn't live anywhere but in western Connecticut. It was kind of like a memoir, but with not enough story or heart to really be a great memoir, and not enough precise research and documentation to be a great study of average Americans. I would love to see this subject treated by Mary Roach or maybe A.J. Jacobs.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool idea but took a while to get to the point. He reviewed and repeated the criteria for the average American so many times - it weighed the book down. I liked how it linked in to a personal journey for him, but at times it became cheesy.

It's fun to see how you disqualify for being average though! For me, it's living in a metropolitan area, having too few people in my household and not eating red meat. Among others, I guess.

[The Tick · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting idea, but the ending seemed just too pat to be believable. There were also several factual errors, including the assertion that there are eight colors in a rainbow (ROY G BIV, anyone?). It made me wonder exactly what else within the book was factually incorrect but that I just didn't have enough background knowledge about. I did like the writing, but there were just too many flaws here.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author sets out to find the most average american by going through statistics and narrowing the list down from the original 300 million candidates. The growing list of criteria is at times a little quirky, but really interesting. It just got a little long, but I was already hooked, and needed to know how it was going to end.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good example of nonfiction that plays out a quirky hypothesis in a pleasing way, taking a fun tour of America and what makes us the same. Depending on your personality, you'll have fun comparing yourself to the average American or railing against it. Yeah, liking crunchy peanut butter REALLY makes you a rebel, Dean Moriarty.

[Andrew Rothstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun read. It has some interesting perspectives of what makes Americans average based on the census and other surveys. The funny part is where the author ends up in finding the ultimate Average American.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

a slow read, but interesting results.

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

FASCINATING!

[Ajaspar · Rating 3 out of 5]

taking forever to read this but have been enjoying all the rando facts.

[Christina]

Thought about skipping to the end as I was leafing through while standing in the Dollar Store line, but realized the guy in front of me had 92 items ... plus it was only a dollar.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cool idea, but just an "average" book.

[Professor Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extraordinary story about the glory of being average.

[Nonito Abbu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Average American chronicle's a man's journey to search for the most average American person in the country. Kevin O'Keefe's statistical prowess and thirst for adventure brings him to the doorstep of the most statistically average American citizen. With his methodology and over a hundred criteria, ranging from demographic criteria including the median income, height and weight, level of education and average savings to interesting and trivial criteria such as whether they prefer smooth over chunky peanut butter, whether they favor pro-choice abortion policies, and medical marijuana, whether they live within 10 miles from a McDonald's or if they have generally inclusive views about their neighbors, regardless of race and other factors. The book is full of interesting twist and turns. Though the book is good for light reading, you can expect it to be very educational and fun at the same time. A tip: Just kind of gloss over the facts and the figures that the author presents. You don't need to know each criterion by heart - just enjoy O'Keefe's narrative and follow his footsteps across America as he goes one step closer each day to meeting Average Joe.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

It might have been due to my being distracted, but I couldn't get into this book. I liked some of the statistics and factoids about Americans, though many were pretty obvious, but the search was boring. For the first time all year, I didn't finish a book. I stopped about halfway through.

[Krishna Kumar · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author travels through the United States to find the person who most closely fits the average attributes of an American. The book is full of interesting factoids. The book drags slightly towards the end.

[Lupe · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like Malcolm Gladwell, this book is for you. However, it's not as statistical as you would think. On O'Keefe's search for the most average American, he finds he is on a spiritual journey to connect with others.

[Tori]

2006

[Shelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a great book! So surprised. The author uses interesting demographic information and hilarious run-ins with citizens all over to truly find the average American. Really enjoyed it!

[Tom Brashear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

good, interesting, well-written