BINGO <i> by Rita Mae Brown (Bantam: $4.95) </i>

In “Bingo,” Rita Mae Brown uses the pleasures of small-town life to explore the need to belong--to a family and a community. Nichole (Nickel) Smith, the lesbian ace journalist of the Runnymede Clarion, finds herself drawn into the conflict between the depersonalized world of corporate acquisitions and local control of affairs when the owner of the newspaper decides to sell it and retire.

Brown’s Runnymede, an antebellum town that straddles the Mason-Dixon Line, is as richly improbable as Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon. Among its more notable inhabitants are Nichole’s adoptive mother, Julia Hunsenmeir, and her sister, Louise. These fractious octogenarians have been quarreling for so long--and have gotten so good at it--that their spats have become a spectator sport in Runnymede. “Bingo” blends honest sentiment with a sassy irreverence, but avoids both mawkishness and flip vulgarity.