Robert F. Gibbons

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Robert Faucett Gibbons (born May 1, 1915 in Tuscaloosa; died July 25, 1995 in Lanett, Chambers County) was a novelist and short story writer.

Gibbons and his twin brother, Michael, were the oldest of nine children born to James Boothe and Anne Walshe Gibbons. He attended public schools in Vernon, Jasper, Sulligent, Decatur, and Moulton before graduating from Ashford High School in 1933. He went on to complete a bachelor of science at Alabama Polytechnic Institute in Auburn and a master of arts at the University of Alabama.

In 1942 Gibbons had two of his short stories accepted for publication on the same day, by Atlantic Monthly and The New Republic. They both also appeared in that year's "Best American Short Stories" collection. Publisher Alfred A. Knopf awarded him a fellowship to complete his first novel, Bright Is the Morning, which appeared in 1943 to critical praise.

Gibbons also began teaching English at the University of Alabama in 1943 and was granted a Rosenwald Fellowship for his second novel. That December he was commissioned into the U.S. Navy for service in World War II and served as a communications staff member on a landing ship in the Pacific.

Following his discharge, Gibbons worked on agricultural projects before he entered Tulane University in New Orleans as a Ph.D candidate. His second and final novel, The Patchwork Time, appeared in 1948. Before completing his PhD in 1957 he taught English at Tulane's Newcomb College for Women. In 1958 he took a post at the nearby Louisiana State University in New Orleans and remained there until 1979. He retired to Lanett in Chambers County.

Gibbons was married four times and had two children.

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