Gibson is the author of Gone Boy: A Walkabout (Kodansha, 1999), Demon of the Waters (Little, Brown, 2004), Hubert's Freaks (Harcourt, 2008).

The Old Turk's Load (Mysterious Press, 2013), and Mooney’s Manifesto (Spuyten Duyvil Publishing, 2023)" After receiving his BA from Swarthmore College in 1967, Gibson enlisted in the United States Navy and worked as a shipfitter until 1971.

After his discharge he moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts and was variously employed as a house painter, cab driver, and construction worker.

In 1992 their oldest son Galen was murdered, the random victim of a school shooting by a disturbed fellow student at Simon's Rock College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

This was followed in 2002 by Demon of the Waters: The True Story of the Mutiny of the Whaleship Globe, which The New York Times deemed “a worthy contribution to the literature of whaling.” Gibson's third non-fiction book, Hubert's Freaks (2008), traces the career of a gifted but troubled individual who discovers a trove of hitherto unknown photographs by the great American photographer Diane Arbus.

Larry McMurtry said of the book, “Hubert's Freaks will fascinate those among us who are continually stimulated by the richness and variety of American subcultures.

The book was named a Deadly Pleasures “Best First Novel” and Booklist's “Best Crime Fiction Debut of the Year.” Elmore Leonard said, “I like Gibson’s writing, the effortless way he tells his story.” In 2023, American critic Kenneth Turan deemed Mooney’s Manifesto “a savage and anguished cry from the black heart of despair at the dead center of the crisis of gun violence in America.” Beginning with “Our Violent Inner Landscape” (New York Times, April 23, 1999) Gibson has published opinion pieces such as “Message from a Club No One Wants to Join” (New York Times, February 17, 2018) or the long-form essay, also for the New York Times (June 1, 2019), “A Gun Killed My Son.

Gibson's fiction and non-fiction pieces specialize in the close examination of various American subcultures, from gun collectors to whaleship crewmen to freak show performers, usually as seen through the eyes of a single, strongly-delineated character.

·  ·  ""Hubert's Freaks": Rare photos lead art dealer on freaky ride of 1950s N.Y." The Seattle Times.