Larry Barretto

Novels and Novellettes:

• A Conqueror Passes (1924)

A former ambulance driver from NY develops depression after the war's end and abandons everything to return to France, where the world has already moved on.

• Masks of Confusion (Feb 1 1924) -- Top-Notch Magazine

• Two is Company (Sep 1924)

Simple novella of a sudden courtship between a socialite woman and a man disenchanted with high society, and their struggle to live while eloped.

• To Babylon (Feb 4, 1925)

A Minnesota architect who moves to New York, involving himself in its night life. Serialized in Argosy All-Story Weekly beginning Dec 6 1924.

• Walls of Glass (1926)

A widow forced to remarry to support her son.

• Old Enchantment (1928)

Generational conflict in NY: two siblings against their aristocratic aunt.

• Horses in the Sky (1929)

WWI novel focusing on four Americans--all ambulance drivers--and their unit in Aisne, France in 1918.

• Hard Guy (Jun 1929) -- Complete Stories Jun #2 1929

• The Indiscreet Years (1931)

A woman puts aside her past affairs in Europe to settle down on Long Island.

• Children of Pleasure (1932)

A story set in Bermuda of the "new poor" adjusting to life after the New York 1929 stock crash. Adapted as a film featuring Ruth Chatterton.

• Three Roads from Paradise (1933)

A New York family and their house through generations, prohibition, and decay. Takes place in 1885, 1905, and 1929.

• Bright Mexico (1935)

Travel reminisces. Illustrated by Ann Barretto.

• Tomorrow Will be Different (1936)

A family's struggles through the 1929 stock crash and Great Depression. They move to a New England village after the husband, Larry, loses his job on the Stock Exchange, and try to adapt to the tight community there.

• Marriage for Sale (Oct? 1936) -- Pictorial Review --  Illustrated by Frank Bensing

• Hawaiian Holiday (1938)

A juvenile novel written with Bryant Cooper, Illustrated by Anne Barretto. One of the brothers is sick and made to convalesce while his sibling discover Hawai'ian culture.

• Journey Through Time (Sep 23, 1940)

An American couple disillusioned by the 1929 stock crash returns to France, where they met in WWI, and are forced to confront the approaching WWII through their 19yo son.

• The Great Light (1947)

A diffucult novel to quantify. Begins in WWI and moves into the lives of six men returning to  post-war New York. The main character, Dirck, was an ambulance driver in France. There, an effeminate yet brave man in his unit challenges his homophobia. Post-war, Dirck gets involved in the stock market, rapes someone, and murders a gay man. The mystical visions he experiences show him the face of the man he murdered as Andragathus--a Greek gay figure--and he becomes obsessed with understanding homosexuality. As WWII approaches, he makes a stand against intolerance--mostly for race--and accidentally rams his car into a tree upon seeing a man resembling Andragathus walking by.