A stone-hard story of a Vermont farmer’s death> In the spring of the year Nowle Forbes was found dead; his daughter wonders if it was really suicide

NOWLE’S PASSING, by Edith Forbes, Seal Press, 266 pages, $21.95.

You don’t have to spend a lot of time in Vermont to see that although Edith Forbes grew up on a ranch in the dry West, in her six short years in the Green Mountains she has mastered the moods of Vermont.

In her newest book, “Nowle’s Passing,” Forbes’ chiseled-out images of Vermont serve as the foundation for a story about distant family members brought together by the tragedy of the suicide of the family patriarch.

Her descriptions are so strong, so angular and stark, that if Vermont had an ocean, Forbes at times could be writing a sequel to “The Shipping News,” E. Annie Proulx’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in seemingly ever-gray Newfoundland.

What “Nowle’s Passing” may lack in maritime lore, it makes up for in its dairy farm setting. Although their numbers are declining day by day, there are quality dairy farms in Vermont. But keeping them running takes hard work and an understanding of how to coax life — both plant and animal — out of the acid soils which cling to Vermont’s river valleys.

Vernon Nowle, a man who may have loved his land and animals more than he loved his family, knew how to do that.

And unlike many of his Vermont brethren, Vernon Nowle was a neatnik. There were no piles of junk metal on his farm waiting to be turned into spare parts. There were no rotted fences, and never a mistreated animal.

Vernan Nowle had a sense of place. He saw, says Forbes, “each piece of existence as part of a larger whole.”

He didn’t like to leave things undone.

Yes, his wife was dead of a tractor accident 19 months ago.

And yes, his herd had recently been lost to falling milk prices.

So at first blush, his daughter, Vincie, might have been able to accept the fact that he had killed himself.

But the more she thought about the circumstances of his death, and the more she learned about the things undone in her father’s life, the more she came to believe that he would not have killed himself — at least not when and where it was said he did.

So Vincie Nowle set out to learn about her parents’ deaths, and in doing so began to learn things about her life. In addition, she began to learn about the lives of the people gathered around her on the sparse Vermont farm where she grew up.

Although the book is intriguing, it can also be somewhat disturbing, especially to New Englanders who mourn the passing of the family farm as it existed a generation ago.

This story is placed in the muddy spring of the year, and like most mud seasons, the promise of better days ahead always seems just out of reach, even if the memories of good days gone by are abundant and full.

“Nowle’s Passing” paints a mix of images with its dairy farm-small town setting. Even if you haven’t spent much time in Vermont, or on a working dairy farm, you’ll likely come away from the book with a sense that you’ve been there.