The Return of Ansel Gibbs (1958)
Winner of the Rosenthal Award, 1959
Book Description
Plagued with doubts about himself, his faith, and the very civilization he has built his life upon, Ansel Gibbs is called back into the public sphere by the President of the United States.
Leaving a life of comfortable anonymity, Gibbs is subjected to a series of inquisitions: a confirmation hearing, scrutiny brought about by attacks from a rival politician, and the uncomfortable questions of his daughter, his former mentor, and Robin Tripp—the son of an old friend, Rudy. Most haunting is the memory of Rudy’s suicide, fifteen years previously, and Gibbs’s guilty suspicion that his own actions somehow contributed to the tragedy. His inability to shake off this feeling precipitates a crisis of identity, and he begins to lose faith in his own ability to serve his country and his family.
The aged politician’s attempt to curry favor in the court of public opinion becomes a search for absolution from Robin, a successful political commentator on national television. His televised debate with the antagonistic Senator Edward Farwell—a debate moderated by Rudy—becomes the dramatic stage for Gibbs’s search for solace, throwing his nomination into doubt, while paradoxically opening the way for redemption.
Reviews
“This is a wholly absorbing, mature, and timely work. The fact that it is also delightful reading is a tribute to its author's skill.”
— A. C. Spectorsky, Saturday Review
“Mr. Buechner has written an extraordinarily dramatic story.”
— Charles Poore, The New York Times
“A grave and beautiful book.”
— Robert Martin Adams, Hudson Review
“Fiction of a high order of excellence.”
— Victor P. Hass, Chicago Sunday Tribune
“Mr. Buechner casts his own particular, brilliantly indirect illumination on a private world that is luxurious, comfortable, furnished with intelligence and a certain charm, possessed of intense loyalty to itself and its members, and generous, with polite and sensible reservations, to outsiders.”
— The New Yorker
“An important book.”
— Times Literary Supplement
“This is a mature piece of work.”
— Literary News
“There is depth and sensitivity to his writing that gives life to the most unreal of his characters. There is an introspective understanding of the struggle of the human soul that is as unusual as it is refreshing.”
— John P. Marquand
