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Unusually Stupid Americans
by Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras

I'm on a losing streak--there's no denying that.

What else to make of Unusually Stupid Americans, the second entry in my quest for some lighthearted Summer reading? As with my first choice, the lamentable tome The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman--a book so dull and disappointing I actually forgot to post my written review of it--my second grab for a literary breeze proved to be a dud.

Unusually Stupid Americans features "a compendium of all-American stupidity"; that is, it's a collection of infotainment items gathered together under several vague topic headings (government, business, food, etc.) and presented for the reader's amusement, in bite-sized morsels. It's a well-worn concept, seen repeatedly in many published works of humor, one which promises lots of laughs without much effort on either side of the equation (reader or author).

On the plus side, the book is not hard to read; no slogging through difficult passages required here. And at least some of the items presented here are silly enough to draw out a guffaw or two.

But not nearly enough of those items are that funny. Worse still, the text is presented with a heaping helping of snark; authors Kathryn and Ross Petras (they're siblings) lay on thick their contempt for their subjects. That would be all well and good if their own contributions amounted to the height of wit and intelligence. Unfortunately, their text presents the reader with little more than boilerplate commentary on the stupidities on display--writing on a par with the humor column of a once a week small town newspaper, with all the banality that implies.

Thus, a book that should have taken a day and a half to read ended up sitting in my bedroom for weeks. But at least I get to get rid of it when I return it to the library. If the local branch is not particularly assiduous about weeding the collection, then--based on its merits--Unusually Stupid Americans may remain on the shelves there, unmoved and unread, for years. Maybe decades. Maybe until the pages rot away to dust. And who will be stupid ones then?