Acorn, Texas doesn’t seem like the kind of small town you’d drive by on the interstate. It seems like a small town that you’d have to get off the beaten path to find. Duane Simolke (pronounced “Smoky”) gives us a tour of its very heart with his slice-of-life collection of short stories, The Acorn Stories.

If you grew up in a small town, or if you’ve lived in one for any length of time, you know that everyone tends to know everyone else’s business, even when you think your business is a well-kept secret. So it is in Acorn. Each of the sixteen stories in the book highlights a different character or characters. Some are likable, some not so much. Many seem like people you might know. People weave into and out of each other’s stories, connected in ways you might not expect.

We meet a gay and deaf English teacher who clashes with a high school football coach over an athlete’s grades. An overbearing big sister who’s followed her little sister to West Texas. A boy desperate to shield his mother and brother from his abusive father. Some will make you love them. Some will make you hate them. All will draw you into their tales and make you feel almost like you’re there in Acorn with them.

And at its core, this book is about emotions. It explores love, lust, grief, pain, and more as the people of Acorn work their way through those things. It illustrates the ways we can delude ourselves into seeing things the way we wish they were, the ways we can either embrace or reject those who are different from us, the ways we make do or don’t. With its focus on human nature, the book would make a great choice for a book club, and Simolke helpfully includes discussion questions at the end. 

Simolke’s writing style isn’t flashy or overly exuberant. It’s conversational, gentle, like people would genuinely think or speak. The dialogue and the descriptions carry you along just quickly enough, like a moving sidewalk passing by Acorn’s residents, giving you time to take a peek into their lives. 

As acorns grow from trees, The Acorn Stories branch out of their small-town setting and create an overarching canopy vividly illustrating the human condition and all its quirks. Pick up a copy. Get to know the residents. You may find that you feel you’re waving goodbye to friends and neighbors when you turn the final page.

Duane Simolke has had his works published in NightFire, Mesquite, Caprock Sun, Midwest Poetry Review, International Journal on World Peace, and other publications. He is the author or co-author of eleven works, and his books have won the Allbooks Reviewers Choice Award and four StoneWall Society Pride in the Arts Awards. He lives in Lubbock, Texas.