Shelley Fraser Mickle is the author of three previous novels and numerous essays. The Assigned Visit is a book for two main characters, since its main protagonist and narrator, Susan Masters, a Mississippi student in 1969 opens a letter more than 20 years later to discover that another student, Caleb Montiel, whom she had an affair with is trying to reconnect to her. Caleb is a draftee to the Vietnam War who is gradually moving up the government list like a macabre hit, rock song. His father, a chaplain and renowned anti war campaigner, tries to talk his Harvard educated son out of contention for war service. Caleb, who is a bit of a libertine, is having none of this. Like most students in 60s US he opposes the war. The group he associates with, along with Susan Masters, are of the generation post President Kennedy who should have the power to change the way power is used and abused. But of course the weight of the war, happening half a world away, is bigger than them all.

All the letters and extracts from the journal punctuate Mickle’s novel. Sometimes the narrator of the novel seems nothing more than an observer while all of these apocalyptic world events are happening. The shooting of students at Kent State University and the machinations of the President, Richard Nixon, are woven into the events of the time. We hear of Hurricane Camille (not of Hurricane Katrina dimensions) which Caleb witnesses. Susan marries but tires of her conjugal state. She is initially distanced from Caleb as her readings from his letters and journals show the detachment that time always imposes on relationships. But the sheer abundance of his correspondence bring back all the unfulfilled memories she has of that time and her propinquity to Caleb.

The book is strong on detail, and descriptive of meals like lobster thermidore and the gumbo cuisine of Susan’s Mississippi origins. Caleb develops a strong interest in the area as a social care worker. He falls in love with Grayce and becomes smitten by the deep south. There are telling anthropological references like Susan listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival or Simon & Garfunkel’s songs. The family Caleb gets involved with practically adopt him as he becomes a fixture at family gatherings. He enjoys a happier life than he did with his disapproving father. Susan meanwhile becomes platonically involved with Caleb’s father. Susan is trying to make progress as a writer. And just when it seems that the two will never meet again a variety of circumstances brings them together.

There is a wonderful, revealing line near the end of the book by Caleb that sums up Caleb’s feelings about the USA in the troubled 60s: ‘We are living in a new country now. I don’t think we can trust an administration to tell us the truth.’ Beneath the title on the dust jacket of the book is a beautiful line that says we learn to love long by once loving deeply. If Shelley Fraser Mickle never writes another novel it would be hard to beat a line like that in a novel that explores the effect of time on a deep relationship.