THE AVENUE, CLAYTON CITY <i> by C. Eric Lincoln (Ballantine Books: $3.95) </i>

C. Eric Lincoln, renowned author of works of nonfiction, is probably best known as the man who invented the term “Black Muslim” and introduced the Nation of Islam to America at large in 1961.

Lincoln’s first work of fiction is set in a mythical Southern town just before World War II, where the main commercial thoroughfare separates the elite white residences Downtown from the unpaved Uptown area where blacks live.

Ben “Guts” Gallimore owns the Blue Flame, the only black restaurant in Clayton City; but he secretly longs for “the call from the Lord . . . and a little church with a steeple on top.”

Dr. Walter Pickney Tait, a man who “just sort of materialized” in town with a half-white alcoholic wife, an 18-year-old daughter and a shaded past, makes his round of sick calls: Good Jelly, at 400 pounds, requires 72 stitches to stop the blood after a lunatic slices him with a razor on a Saturday night.