Customer Reviews

The Acorn Stories (Acorn, Texas)

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After reading the first three chapters of "The Acorn Stories" , I knew that I wanted to purchase Simolke's book. I live in West Texas, the setting for this collection of fiction. On the Texas plains, any nuance in the landscape calls attention to itself, and Simolke's writing is rich with nuance: simple gestures, like the movements of hands or the flips and turns of a swimmer, can shape a story. The prose is spare and lyrical. Simolke treats his characters and their situations with genuine tenderness. I give "The Acorn Stories" five stars on the basis of its first twenty-five pages, and I look forward to sitting down with this book and enjoying the next two hundred pages.

It was a real pleasure to read about the fictional town of Acorn, TX and get to meet all the different and varied people that Mr. Simolke so eloquently fleshed out. The many and varied voices with which he was able to assume to bring these characters to life made me wonder at times if he'd even transcribed recordings! He was successful in making me believe he was young, old, White, Black, Hispanic, straight, gay, male, and female. It is the mark of a truly talented author who has the ability to listen and look at a wide variety of people, then translate what he hears and sees of them onto paper--and successfully make me believe. And even though each of the vignettes was relatively short, I had a sense that I really knew each of the characters who was speaking or thinking. Mr. Simolke is an author one shouldn't ignore.

The Acorn Stories
Duane Simolke

Review by Mountman

Picture a small town in West Texas. Acorn. The reason it's called Acorn is that it is the only town in West Texas that has a lot of trees. Yes, Acorn is a fictional town but after reading The Acorn Stories, I wanted to visit the place, just to check it out.

" "Welcome to Acorn, population 21,001, the Texas town with a little name and a big heart" - Sign marking city limits of Acorn" (taken from the book.)

Like the branches of the Main Street Oak tree, the town has just as many histories and legends. Each story gives you a glimpse into lives of the people of Acorn. Also how their lives are intertwined.

There are stories about the founding family, newcomers, the rich, the poor and in between. When I first started reading it I felt like I was left hanging. Just then, in Simolke unique clever style, things began to connect. Growing up in a small town I could relate to some of the characters. Duane gives you just enough details that you get a feel for where each of the characters are coming from. There are people that you like, some that you can't wait to see if they get theirs. Big cheers for when they do!

Ones that really grabbed me are Survival and Dead Enough. Survival is about a gay, deaf teacher. Dead Enough is about a writer of murder mysteries. I'm not going to give you any details because you will have to find out for yourself.

Whether you are an avid short story reader, or a novel reader this is a must read! So check it out.

I received "The Acorn Stories" this afternoon. I ended up reading it all the way through at one sitting, I enjoyed it so much. It would be hard to say which stories I liked best, but "Flip, Turn", "Knock", and "Mae" would be near the top of the list. These three stories in particular demonstrate the author's gift for putting down in words the ways that thoughts go flitting through our minds in seemingly random but somehow connected patterns. As in life, the mishmash of narrative may seem chaotic at times, but it all makes sense in the end, or as much sense as anything makes these days.

Maybe the "stream of consciousness"-type stories stuck in my mind because I was listening to Wagner's opera "Das Rheingold" in the background as I read. Wagner's compositions have been described as "continuous melody", ever-changing yet relentlessly rolling onward, much as our conscious thoughts stream by. The author manages to put this process into words in a way I haven't encountered before.

Mr. Simoke has a rare grasp of what goes on inside people's heads. I look forward to reading his other books.

"Welcome to Acorn, population 21,001, the Texas town with a little name and a big heart."

In this slim collection of 16 stories Duane Simolke introduces us to Acorn, Texas: "the historical West Texas town of Acorn! Enjoy the German festival, a high school football game, homemade apple pie from the Turner Street Cafe, and the cool shade of a hundred-year-old oak tree. Just be careful, because in Acorn the sky is always falling." I don't know if there really is an Acorn, Texas; I don't suppose it matters. There's a little Acorn in every small town.

These wry little tales of intertwining lives remind one a little of Sherwood Anderson's WINESBURG, OHIO, but the citizens of Acorn are less freakish, more down to earth. Here live Regina and Dirk, looking for love in all the wrong places; gay teacher Chandler Davis, who though deaf, understands more than most; and Morgana Le Fay, the matchmaking cat.

My only quibble with this charming collection of gentle and ironic tales is that Simolke seemed to cut away at pivotal moments in his characters' lives only to return once the shootin' was over. I wanted a little more!

Still, it's a small quibble. If you liked WINESBURG, OHIO or the SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY, rejoice. There's a new spinner of small town tales, of the little trials and triumphs that make a town a legend. From tiny acorns...

The tales in Duane Simolke's The Acorn Stories are so interrelated that it's almost misleading to call them a collection of short stories. By the time you have finished reading these tales of the people who inhabit the fictitious town of Acorn, Texas, population 21,001, you will have met some endearing as well as irritating characters, from the Mayor to the local would-be gigolo; from the busy-bodies to the business owners; from those who grew up in Acorn and have tried to escape the small town to those who have moved to Acorn to escape from the real world. Set in west Texas, you will understand and appreciate the culture of Hispanics and Anglos as they play out their lives with each other, with an interesting mix of blacks thrown in. Meet Becky and Kyle, the newlyweds, and Becky's overprotective sister, Regina. You grow to like Becky and Kyle and their struggle to make ends meet, while their love for each other blossoms and grows strong as they put down roots in Acorn. Meet a famous writer who has staged his own death and is now hiding out in Acorn, while his wife is busy promoting his works. Meet the gay art gallery owner, whose business is ruined by the closeted Mayor and the league of religious bigots who seek to cleanse the town of immorality and to put women in their "place." Rejoice when the art gallery is rebuilt with the help of one of the local rich women, so that Becky can display her unusual and very personal artwork. There are too many character to enumerate, and I don't want to ruin your reading experience by listing too many of the delightful and dreadful scenes that occur in the small town. But I would like to mention my favorite story, which has such a surprise ending it left me thinking of "A Rose for Emily," not because of the subject matter, but because this writer, like Faulkner, does not let you guess the truth until the end. "Knock" is described by Simolke as a story where "a father sees his daughter abandon her Mexican heritage, and he now fears other types of abandonment." Simolke doesn't tell you who is knocking at Jamie Hernandez's door, and you have to wait for the end to find out-something utterly different than what you might expect. Although there are other masterfully told stories in this book, "Knock" in my opinion is the centerpiece.

Ronald L. Donaghe is a technical writer and novelist from New Mexico. His work includes two novels in a series called "Common Threads in the Life:" Common Sons and The Salvation Mongers. A third book in the series will be published this year, entitled The Blind Season. He has also published a full-length autobiography about being openly gay in the US military, entitled My Year of Living Heterosexually and other adventures in Hell.

I found this book to be a perfect vacation companion. Filled with stories that "packed a punch" for good reading but were also short and often had some good humor spliced into the writing.

I hadn't heard of this author before but bought the book when it was recommended to me based upon something else I purchased for my Kindle on Amazon and I saw the reviews were more glowing than most books often are. So I took the plunge.

I'm glad I did. Set in a small town in Texas called Acorn, the characters are well developed and the writing in each story matches the personality of the character telling it...for example the phrase from the character whose couch sits on bricks and has crates to complete the rest of his living room furniture ensemble: "Why would he try to swim that far? Like some Russian Olympics guy on deltoids? Most people who try to swim that distance only end up getting stung by jellybean fish, just so they can get mentioned in a book about who pulled the dumbest stunts."

While the writer could have used the correct words of "steroids" and "jellyfish" just as perfect phrases were used for other characters, that wouldn't develop this character nearly as well...because we all know that person who seems slightly less astute by utilizing words that are close to what they should say, but still miss the mark by a mile. It makes you pity them but also chuckle a little under your breath...which is exactly what you do within this particular tale.

This is just one example of the author really bringing you in to the story in ways other than just descriptive words. The author truly paints a verbal picture so you KNOW the characters but you are also entertained throughout. The characters and their tales feel real, as does the town. And the stories feel real to a small town because of the atmosphere that one becomes a part of there that would never occur in a bigger city.

So much so that, upon completing the book, I felt more as though I'd just visited Acorn Texas on vacation rather than merely read about it in short stories.

Each story is intertwined rather than just there for entertainment and each character is well-defined and the humor throughout the book makes it a pleasure and an easy and enjoyable read.

Great book and writing

Alternatives: This book reminded me of the book "Drift" which I read over the summer from Vine. Same type of intertwined short stories and well-defined characters and humor. (But, to be honest, Acorn stories is way more funny.) They are equally good so I don't have a preferance but if you have read Drift, you should like this one. If you liked this one, you should like Drift...

This book is just wonderful. I hate to say much about books here, because I hate spoilers. This one really hits home and if you have a heart you won't want to miss it!

Duane Simolke's offering of his sixteen short stories, many with overlapping characters and plot-lines, all set within or around the fictitious west-Texas small town of Acorn, provides its readers an insightful and literate look at what goes on in the hinderlands beyond the boundaries of this country's big cities.

Not as salaciously rendered as was Peyton Place (which, if you remember, was a small town taken on by Grace Metalious), Simolke's Acorn, Texas, still turns out to be rife with some of the same angst-ridden problems, thereby, once again, exploding the myth that rural "out there" is actually more idyllic (even Edenesque), as compared to big-city "in here".

From the who-will-have-control-of-this-relationship "dueling" of Regina Thibodeaux and Dirk Palmer in Simolke's lead-off story "Acorn", to the not-always-that-pleasant reminisces of town maven Aragon Carsons in the book's concluding "Acorn Pie", Simolke puts rural America under a microscope to unveil all of its acne, sores, scars, and festering wounds.

THE ACORN STORIES isn't for any reader out to preserve his or her unrealistic nostaligic notion that rural-America is the place "to be" "to get away from it all". On the other hand, for those of us not put off by realism and always interested in a literate writer who can provide us a peek beneath the veneer, Simolke provides some very enjoyable reading moments.

The Acorn Stories is a well-crafted collection of short stories interwoven to reveal the warts and all lives of a number of the residents in the fictional town of Acorn, Texas, population 21,001. On the surface Acorn is just a laid-back, typical little West Texas town, except with lots of trees. But Duane Simolke lets us look way beyond the surface as he introduces us to the townspeople. We meet a struggling young married couple, a beloved teacher who is both gay and deaf, a lonely widow, a kind young man who is the product of an abusive household, a not-so-loveable, but funny scoundrel, an estranged daughter. There are too many memorable characterslikeable and not so likeableto mention. My favorite is a transplanted Acornian on the lam. A writer from New Orleans who fakes his death in order to become great and sell books. And one of my favorite lines from Simolkes book is attributed to him: I missed New Orleans. I missed rain and trees and hurricanes and jazz and Anne Rice and dirty rice and people who spoke bad English with finesse at an unnatural speed. Simolke doesnt hold back in his attempt to reveal the truth that is Acorn and all small towns. The motley group of characters in the The Acorn Stories will make you cry, and will also make you laugh, because as my transplanted Acornian so humorously puts it nothing could be more frightening than an afterlife in West Texas.