Set in a backwater Louisiana town during World War II, The Cover of LIFE introduces Kate, a savvy reporter assigned to write a morale-boosting story. The article is scheduled to become a LIFE magazine feature focusing on the wives left behind, particularly three women married to three brothers who enlisted in three different branches of the service on the same day. The young war brides have moved in with their no-nonsense mother-in-law But as the big city journalist quickly learns, the home fires are burning — and growing increasingly out of control. Poignant and bittersweet, what begins as a picture-perfect vision of patriotism becomes a smoldering portrait of misplaced hopes and harbored dreams.