Nowle's passing

by Edith Forbes

"The cost squeeze that drove a third of Vermont's farms out of business in the last decade has brought tragedy to the Owens River Valley. Authorities now believe the gunshot wound that killed Vernon Nowle, 67, of Worthing, last Saturday, was self-inflicted. 'All indications point to suicide,' said a spokesman for the Vermont State Police." To the newspaper, the story was simple. To Nowle's daughter Vincie, the death was not simple at all. After a decade of urban life and an increasingly suffocating marriage, Vincie returns to her small hometown, where a reunion of grief quickly becomes complicated. Along with her brothers, the charming salesman Chad and the solid-as-a-rock biology teacher Darrell, Vincie navigates an emotional house of mirrors in which the familial signposts of identity and loyalty, love and deception, create a maze of intrigue - and force Vincie to confront her own reflection.