LOVING HANDS AT HOME

Life seems so simple and joyous for a woman. Her duties are her joys."" Thus speaks Mother Fry, Mormon head of a tribal enclave (three married children; eleven grandchildren) and a formidable Nature-and-Nurture force (her Home Ec-centricities even include the making of head cheese). This story is told by Karen, one of the later and not altogether convinced members of the Latter Day Saints to whom domestic accomplishments are less significant. In fact, after a tumble from a motorcycle and a fallen cake, she acquires a new interior life of her own and begins to question, doubt, ""cross over"" in the words of her charming brother-in-law Sebastian, another apostate. He also, after one lapse with Karen, finally achieves a true love relationship with his employer, Mrs. Paris Pratt, whom he has attended for years in various custodial capacities. Other insurgent incidents--daughter Joan who is in flagrante with a serviceman between her seventh and eighth babies, and Karen's overnight runaway attempt. . . . All of this, like Karen, is not too resolved but offers a view of life which is attractively askew along with both pert and pertinent annotations of love, marriage and the mystique. Younger women should enjoy it.