WATCH FOR THE MORNING

Another variation on the lucrative tune the Thornbird sings--a three-part arrangement: woman gets man; man bags woman's illusions, dreams, and best years; woman, as gaunt survivor, gets hers by out-living (or shedding) man. This chronicle of Kate, the cupid-cursed, is set deep in that fat exploitable legacy of 19th-century Mormonism so dear to the heart of the paperback business--polygamy. Young Kate, rescued from the streets of Liverpool and married by handsome, leonine Elder Burns Hamilton of the Latter Day Saints, believes he is hers alone. But once across the seas in Utah, Burns rises, Saints-wise, and Kate is cast to the depths of humiliation as her husband accepts another wife. . . and later another. . . and another. The years pass, and Kate, worn by birthings, unappreciated labors, and family tragedies, sees all the bright dreams of youth destroyed. When oh when, you ask, will she ever tell Burns where to put his pieties? Alas, it's a long spell, which also encompasses the sad love story of Kate's daughter Mary Ann and Kate's adopted Indian son, Tom. Kate, now a grandmother, finally digs in her heels--after enduring the cruel death of one daughter and the suicide of her favorite son. At the fade-out, Kate and Mary Ann--scarred, drained, but enduring, Lord knows--brew tea. Ah well, if it's your cuppa. . . .