The Barons of New Orleans

This book (originally scheduled to be a series of books, a la The Savages by Fred Mustard Stewart) chronicles the life of the Barons, a large family of immigrants in America in modern times. It is straight literary writing, with no supernatural elements, what one might call Updikean fiction.

The Barons are a family of Russian immigrants who settled in New Orleans. The original family name was Baronovsky, but the patriarch shortened the name to Baron when they immigrated to America to be more Anglicized and modern. The children and grandchildren have all grown up solely in America and are as American as anyone here.

To explain, as some are confused by the change, this is the same book that was originally titled The End of the Second Millennium. I wrote ESM in the late 1980s and early 1990s and it was looking forward to the “great” millennial change. This seemed an appropriate title for my Great American Novel. Now, however, as we have long passed that hallmark, I decided to update the book and remove that aspect from the title, as the main focus has always been simply the family. But there are references here and there online or in print journals that mention the ESM. For instance it was serialized on The Fiction Network as The End of the Second Millennium. These all refer to The Barons of New Orleans.