One True Podcast: Recent Episodes
Mark Cirino and Michael Von Cannon
One True Podcast explores all things related to Hemingway, his work, and his world. The show is hosted by Mark Cirino and produced by Michael Von Cannon. Join us in conversation with scholars, artists, political leaders, and other luminaries. For more, follow us on Twitter @1truepod. You can also email us at 1truepod@gmail.com.
Welcome back to the fortieth edition of our favorite literary parlor game as our guests choose their favorite sentence from everything Hemingway ever wrote in prose, poetry, correspondence, or journalism.
In this episode, David Morrell, prolific author and creator of the iconic John Rambo character, offers his one true sentence from “In Another Country.”
Morrell – author of First Blood, The Brotherhood of the Rose, and The Successful Novelist, among many others – joins us to discuss his life in writing and reading. We discuss the importance of first sentences, Hemingway’s grammar, Morrell’s friendship with the legendary Hemingway scholar Philip Young, good writing as hypnotic, the creation of Rambo as a character, John Barth, Carl Jung, and much more!
Thank you for listening to One True Podcast! Consider donating to the Hemingway Society, including to the recently created One True Podcast Fund or the Hemingway Café Club!
Previous "one true sentences" are collected in: One True Sentence: Writers and Readers on Hemingway’s Art, available here.
Welcome to our fifth episode celebrating the centenary of The Sun Also Rises! On today’s show, we welcome the always excellent David Wyatt to explore the way Hemingway represents “thinking” in the novel.
Although Hemingway may not be as celebrated as Faulkner, Joyce, Proust, and Woolf at depicting human consciousness, in this episode David Wyatt guides us through crucial moments in The Sun Also Rises to show Hemingway’s subtle power in dramatizing thought in action.
Wyatt takes us from Jake’s bedroom to his self-conscious prayer, to his drunken reading of Turgenev in bed, to the excitement of the bullring in order to reveal how the reader gains access to Jake’s interiority, making The Sun Also Rises a psychological novel in disguise.
As with all of the The Sun Also Rises episodes this year, we enjoy the legendary actor William Hurt reading—in this episode, from Jake’s “I thought I had paid for everything” meditation in chapter 14, courtesy of our friends at Simon & Schuster Audio.
Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, read by William Hurt. Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Consider supporting One True Podcast here: https://members.hemingwaysociety.org/podcast
Join us for the second of three installments of One True Book Club ’26! In this series of episodes, we are reading the Hemingway-relevant selection, Under Fire by Henri Barbusse, the classic French WWI novel published in 1916.
This episode covers chapters 10-19 of the novel. We discuss how Barbusse finds moments of unexpected humanity amidst the carnage of warfare and his subtle characterization of the platoon, including the narrator himself. We also cover his metafictional “Swear Words” chapter, where Barbusse reflects on a Realist writer attempts to describe the indescribable.
We also connect this brutal novel to Hemingway’s writing, to other modernist works, to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried… and even to The Shawshank Redemption.
We are using the Penguin Classics edition with an Introduction written by future One True Podcast guest, Professor Jay Winter.
In this episode, we welcome Julia Cooke to discuss her new book, Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World, which profiles three pioneering women journalists: Rebecca West, Emily "Mickey" Hahn, and Martha Gellhorn.
Cooke explores these writers' shared temperament and celebrates their work as a forerunner to New Journalism. Throughout our interview, we learn about Gellhorn: her life before Hemingway entered the scene (in a letter, she would describe her younger self as "starry and restless”), her short-lived relationship with Hemingway, and her later years in which she adopted a son and experienced a rather complicated motherhood. Cooke also immerses us in Gellhorn's writing, focusing on how her war journalism weaves together harrowing scenes with humanizing details and how her witnessing of Dachau toward the end of WWII was truly transformative.
One True Podcast does its part to help your summer reading lists by covering a book that is not by Hemingway, but is Hemingway-relevant: Henri Barbusse’s Under Fire, the 1916 World War I novel that Frederic Henry and Count Greffi name-drop so provocatively in between sips of icy cold champagne and smoothly fluent billiards shots.
This episode covers the first nine chapters of Under Fire, where we discuss why Hemingway damned this novel with such faint praise in his Men at War anthology, how the episodic structure might remind readers of a contemporary work like The Things They Carried, the absence of instantly recognizable characters, and – controversially – whether there’s more rain in this novel or in A Farewell to Arms. One True Podcast is never one to shy away from the divisive topics.
We hope you’ll join us in this summer’s long-overdue read of Under Fire. We are using the Penguin Classics edition with an Introduction written by future One True Podcast guest, Professor Jay Winter.
Live from the University of Evansville campus and the Shanklin Theatre, where Rami Malek once trod the boards…
One True Podcast welcomes Alex Vernon for an interview recorded live in front of a captive audience of students, faculty, and community members in Evansville, Indiana, as he discusses his magnificent new biography of Tim O’Brien, Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O’Brien.
Vernon explains his process of how to write a true biography, O’Brien’s life and relationship to the Vietnam War, what distinguishes O’Brien’s style as a writer, the enduring power of some of his greatest work, and much more. It is a generous, penetrating Q&A session with the world’s preeminent O’Brien scholar.
Vernon – who has previously joined One True Podcast for a discussion of Hemingway and War, as well as an episode devoted to “Soldier’s Home” – lends his essential perspective to this essential contemporary writer.
Special thanks to the UE students for their insightful questions at the end, and to the wizardry of sound designer Jon Robertson for his assistance.
Episode Bibliography
Tim O’Brien works mentioned:
- Going After Cacciato
- If I Die in a Combat Zone
- In the Lake of the Woods
- The Things They Carried
Other works mentioned:
- Five-volume biography of Hemingway by Michael Reynolds (The Young Hemingway, Hemingway: The Paris Years, Hemingway: The Homecoming, Hemingway: The 1930s, Hemingway: The Final Years)
In our fourth episode celebrating the centenary of The Sun Also Rises, we examine the theme of religion and its role in the novel.
From the title, the epigraphs, the pilgrims on the train, Jake’s self-conscious prayer, the festival of San Fermín, and the idea of fishing as a religious experience, Larry Grimes guides us through this vast topic and shows Hemingway’s religious design in The Sun Also Rises. Grimes also discusses the minor roles of Harris and Montoya and explains why Jake is such a rotten Catholic.
Listening to Larry Grimes talk about such a crucial topic in this great novel is our idea of a divine pleasure. We hope you’ll enjoy it, too!
Also, in these Sun Also Rises episodes, we enjoy the legendary actor William Hurt reading from Jake’s fascinating prayer in chapter 10, courtesy of our friends at Simon & Schuster Audio.
Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, read by William Hurt. Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Thank you for supporting One True Podcast, from Mark and Michael (each with a hell of a Biblical name!)
Legendary scholar Jackson Bryer joins us once again, this time to discuss one controversial moment in Hemingway’s career, his vicious “poor Scott Fitzgerald” swipe in the original publication of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”
We discuss the publication history of this graceless insult, what it says about Hemingway and what it says about Fitzgerald. We go on to discuss “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” as a story and the ways that wealth emerges as one of Fitzgerald’s central themes. We explore the nature of the Hemingway-Fitzgerald relationship in the 1930s, Fitzgerald’s “The Rich Boy,” and other works where the very rich emerge as important characters.
Join us in our romantic awe of Jackson Bryer as he guides us through this notorious moment in Hemingway’s career!
In the midst of our centenary festivities around The Sun Also Rises, One True Podcast takes an opportunity to celebrate another Hemingway work published in 1926: The Torrents of Spring.
Elena Zolotariov, author of "'Black and Red Laughter': Subverting Whiteness in Hemingway’s The Torrents of Spring" (from the Fall 2023 issue of the Hemingway Review), joins us to offer an exploration and even defense of Hemingway's neglected satire. In this episode, we talk about how and why Hemingway satirizes Sherwood Anderson's Dark Laughter, examine the plot ofHemingway's novella and the characters we meet along the way, and finally discuss its legacy.
At the end of the episode, enjoy Garnet Ungar's rendition of Chopin's Étude Op. 10, No. 4 (Torrent). For even more on The Torrents of Spring and its publication history, also check out our episode with Ross K. Tangedal on Hemingway in 1926.
In our third episode celebrating the centenary of The Sun Also Rises, we examine the novel’s anti-Semitic streak and the central role of its Jewish character, Robert Cohn.
We welcome the scholar Jeremy Kaye of Moorpark College for a discussion about this incendiary theme, the difference between Hemingway’s anti-Semitism and his characters, Cohn’s Jewish masculinity, his function as a scapegoat, the historical inspiration for Cohn, and much more. Even those who count The Sun Also Rises as their favorite novel admit to cringing at the hateful anti-Semitic slurs uttered by the characters. Enjoy Jeremy Kaye’s spirited defense of Robert Cohn and his "main-character energy"!
As always in these Sun Also Rises episodes, we enjoy the legendary actor William Hurt reading a memorable scene featuring Cohn, courtesy of our friends at Simon & Schuster Audio.
Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, read by William Hurt. Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
On the happy occasion of the publication of Francesca Wade’s magnificent Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife, we speak with the biographer about Stein’s life, work, and complicated relationships.
Wade describes her access to new Stein archives that afforded her a fresh look on the enigmatic writer, the difference between Stein's legend and her life, the particular value of her various publications, and what she was ultimately trying to capture with her singular writing style. Wade also explores Stein’s “afterlife,” the controversial legacy that her writings and persona have left us.
We also discuss the fraught Hemingway-Stein relationship, that cryptic passage in A Moveable Feast, and what each might have meant to the other.
Join us for a new consideration of one of Hemingway’s oldest friendships and rivalries!
In our second episode devoted to the centenary of The Sun Also Rises, we turn our focus to the beloved Count Mippipopolous.
He’s an epicurean and an entrepreneur; he’s battle-tested, arrow-wounded, champagne-enjoying, no-dancing, business-tripping, generous-tipping... and he’s always in love. We discuss his role in the novel, his relationship with Brett and Jake, Hemingway’s original plan for him in the manuscript, and how he emerges as such a resonant figure.
Make sure to listen for a snippet of Leonard Nimoy as the Count in the polarizing 1984 mini-series, where he says things that he doesn’t say in the novel. As always, we enjoy the legendary actor William Hurt reading a pivotal scene involving the Count, courtesy of our friends at Simon & Schuster Audio.
If you’re quite one of us, you will love this exploration of Hemingway’s great novel and this indelible, magnificently alive secondary character.
Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, read by William Hurt. Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
We are thrilled to welcome Susan Shillinglaw, the preeminent John Steinbeck scholar, to discuss one of Hemingway’s contemporaries and fellow Nobel laureates.
Although Hemingway and Steinbeck are not discussed comparatively as frequently as some of his other fellow literary titans, Prof. Shillinglaw talks about Steinbeck’s life, career, and temperament in ways that will inspire us to remap the overlaps between these two men. We explore Steinbeck’s fondness for “The Butterfly and the Tank,” Hemingway and Steinbeck’s different paths during the 1930s, the way The Red Pony’s Jody Tiflin functions as a Nick Adams-like character, and much more.
Make sure to tune in to the very end of the episode! In honor of Steinbeck, our friend Michael Kim Roos treats us to a version of Woody Guthrie’s “Tom Joad.” For more information about Mike’s music, see: https://mikeroos.com.
Throughout the course of this year, we will celebrate the centenary of The Sun Also Rises by inviting guests on the show to talk about fascinating aspects of the book and its rich history.
In this episode, we explore how the book was actually written—from a sloppy first draft to a modernist masterpiece. What will tracing this composition history tells us about the evolution of The Sun Also Rises and Hemingway’s own development as a writer?
To help us explore this topic, Carl Eby joins us once again! Eby is the former President of the Hemingway Society and has focused much of his research on Hemingway's posthumous work. He has joined us previously for episodes on Islands in the Stream and The Garden of Eden, and he also inaugurated our One True Sentence series with One True Sentence #1, a discussion of Hemingway's "Paris 1922" sketches.
Thanks to the support of Simon & Schuster, this episode also includes an audio portion from William Hurt's narration of The Sun Also Rises. Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, read by William Hurt. Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
One True Podcast is back with a look at another Hemingway short story, an under-discussed gem from Winner Take Nothing. One of the weirdest works in his career, “Homage to Switzerland” is a Modernist experiment that tells a similar story three times, each one set in a different Swiss train station.
To walk us through this bizarre tale, we call on excellent Hemingway scholar and actual citizen of Switzerland, Boris Vejdovksy, professor at the University of Lausanne. Vejdovksy explains the story’s structure, its setting, its Modernist qualities, the way the iceberg principle functions in the story, and even its “Swiss-ness.”
Join us as we explore this fascinating triptych!
Happy New Year from One True Podcast! We look forward to a rich, exciting 2026 by looking back to 1926.
In our first show of the year, we ask an esteemed guest to take us back exactly one hundred years to see what was happening in Hemingway’s life, work, and world. So, to guide us through Hemingway’s 1926 -- his travels, his relationships, his publishing, and his writing – we welcome the great Hemingway scholar Ross K. Tangedal.
For Hemingway, 1926 was a colossally important year that saw his transition from Hadley to his second wife, Pauline; the transition from Boni & Liveright to Scribner’s; and the publication of The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises, both crucially important for different reasons. Tangedal guides us through this remarkable year in Hemingway’s life and his writing.
We have previously begun calendar years with flashback episodes featuring: Mary Dearborn on 1922; James M. Hutchisson on 1923; Verna Kale on 1924; and J. Gerald Kennedy on 1925. We encourage you to check out those past shows to get up to date!
Thank you for making 2025 such a special year for One True Podcast! Together, we devoted shows to the centenary of In Our Time, to our One True Book Club discussion of W.H. Hudson’s The Purple Land, to the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby, and to so much more. We’re so grateful to all of our amazing guests for enriching and enlivening our program, and to all of our listeners for their loyalty.
As our gift back to you, we close 2025 in our favorite of ways: we welcome Suzanne del Gizzo onto the show to discuss a season-appropriate piece of Hemingway’s work. This year, we discuss “Christmas in Paris,” Hemingway’s poignant, melancholy sketch describing a young couple away from home for the holidays.
Before we welcome in Suzanne, old friend Mackenzie Astin narrates Hemingway’s “Christmas in Paris” to put us in the spirit. Make sure you keep listening after the episode to be treated to a rendition of “Noël à Paris,” performed by Bill Hemminger (piano) and Melody Winfrey (vocals).
Wishing you all happiness over the holidays, and we’ll see you on the other side.
One True Podcast would never let 2025 end without one more episode celebrating the centenary of In Our Time, so today we discuss a classic short story from that collection: “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife.”
Scholar (and podcaster) Scott Yarbrough visits us from Charleston to lead us through the many elements of this great story: Dr. Adams’s quarrel with Dick Boulton, the doctor’s icy relationship with his wife, and finally his moment of connection with his son. Along the way, we touch on the ethics of log stealing, the implications of Christian Scientism, Hemingway’s captivating early prose style, Nick’s role in the narrative, and whether or not this story qualifies as one of Hemingway’s “greatest hits.”
Join us for a trip into the Michigan woods and a guided tour through “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife.” We know where there’s black squirrels!
The prominent Faulkner scholar Ahmed Honeini first joined us in 2024 to discuss the rivalry and intertextuality between Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.
Clearly, in a topic so vast, devoted to the two leading titans of 20th-century American literature, one puny, inexhaustible episode was not enough. So, Ahmed Honeini agreed to come back onto One True Podcast to continue our pursuit of Hemingway and his contemporaries. We discuss Faulkner’s great works, how his concept of mortality compares with Hemingway’s, the inadequacy of language, Hemingway’s iceberg theory, and Ahmed’s favorite moment in all of Faulkner.
Join us for this wonderful conversation with the Founder of the Faulkner Studies in the UK Research Network!
The Great Gatsby celebrates its 100th birthday this year, and you knew that One True Podcast couldn’t let 2025 go by without joining the celebration. We mark the centenary of this great American novel by marking its importance in American literary history as well as the life and career of Ernest Hemingway.
Fitzgerald scholar William Blazek visits us from his post at Liverpool Hope University to discuss the novel’s legacy, its glorious language, and its ambiguous themes; Gatsby as a complex and misunderstood character; how Gatsby would have struck the young Hemingway; and so many other aspects of this magnificent work.
Like Nick Carraway just remembering he is turning thirty, One True Podcast hopes it isn’t too late to join the roaring celebration of Gatsby at 100!
Thanks as always for supporting One True Podcast!
Michael Deagler, the 2025 PEN/Hemingway winner for Early Sobrieties, shares his one true sentence from To Have and Have Not.
Join us for our favorite Hemingway parlor game as this excellent novelist chooses his favorite sentence from everything Hemingway ever wrote. We discuss writing about addiction and recovery, Hemingway’s use of dialogue, the way The Sun Also Rises serves as a textbook guide for writing novels, and much more.
Don’t forget to submit your nomination for One True Book Club 2026! Submit your choice for a book that is not by Hemingway but is Hemingway-relevant to 1truepod@gmail.com.
Thank you for your continued support of One True Podcast!
One True Podcast looks ahead to the last volume of Hemingway’s letters!
Although Hemingway’s correspondence from 1957-1961 won’t be officially published for another couple of decades, the co-editors of the last volume of the Hemingway letters – J. Gerald Kennedy and Michael Von Cannon – along with their advisory editor, Valerie Hemingway, share insights about their work that covers Hemingway’s final days.
We learn what was occupying Hemingway’s mind, his most frequent correspondents, the writing that consumed him, and how this last volume might reveal some of the health and psychological issues that plagued his later years.
Join these three co-editors for an exclusive conversation on the volume we will eventually read, and their candid impressions of Hemingway’s last letters.
One True Podcast examines the most important male friendship of the last fifteen years of Hemingway’s life, his extraordinary relationship with Major General “Buck” Lanham, whom he met when he was an embedded journalist with the 22nd Infantry Regiment during World War II.
Greer Rising – Buck was his father’s godfather – and Eileen Martin join us to talk about Buck’s background, his military history, his literary aspirations, and of course his intimate relationship with Hemingway. They discuss the Hemingway-Lanham interactions, encounters, and correspondence to demonstrate the intensity of the relationship and just how consequential it was.
Join us as we learn more about the inspiration behind Colonel Cantwell in Across the River and into the Trees, the man whom Hemingway called “the finest and bravest and most intelligent and able regimental commander I have ever known.”
Thank you for supporting One True Podcast!
One True Podcast explores one of the most influential friends in Hemingway’s life: Eric “Chink” Dorman-Smith. Although Chink has been mentioned several times during past episodes, we finally devote an entire episode to this fascinating figure and his profound influence on Hemingway.
For this discussion, we welcome Lavinia Greacen, the author of Chink: A Biography and, most recently, Military Maverick: Selected Letters and War Writing of “Chink” Dorman-Smith. We discuss Chink’s Irish background, his formidable military career, how he became Ernest and Hadley’s vacation companion, how his voice appears in Hemingway’s early war sketches, how he inspired the late novel Across the River and into the Trees, and much more.
As a special gift to our listeners, we end the episode with some rare archival audio of Chink Dorman-Smith himself. We bet you will never read Chapter III of In Our Time the same way ever again.
At One True Podcast we were sad to hear of the death of Patrick Hemingway, the middle son of Ernest, who died on September 2, 2025. Patrick Hemingway (1928-2025) lived a life that was truly Hemingwayesque: traveling like his father, living much of his life in Africa, hunting and fishing, and determined to maintain the legacy of his father’s literary work.
We invited Sandra Spanier, General Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project, to share her memories of Patrick, including his contributions to the Letters Project, her visits with him, and a poignant interview with Patrick that was conducted just a few months ago. Our episode closes with a soundbite from that June 2025 interview.
We hope you enjoy this immediate reaction to the sad news of Patrick’s passing.
One True Podcast continues our celebration of the centenary of Hemingway’s In Our Time by examining a classic Nick Adams story: "The End of Something."
We welcome Lisa Tyler to discuss the story, its setting, cast of characters, and curiously inexact title. We examine how the story serves as a prequel to "The Three-Day Blow," (while also pointing out many differences between the two texts), discuss the emotional and psychological damage suggested by Nick's line "everything was gone to hell inside of me," and figure out Bill's role in this break-up tale.
Lisa Tyler, esteemed Hemingway scholar and editor of Wharton Hemingway, and the Advent of Modernism, makes the convincing claim that Marjorie emerges from this story as one of the most remarkable female characters in Hemingway’s entire canon.
Join us for this discussion of a Hemingway classic!
One True Podcast concludes its One True Book Club for the year with its third of three installments on W.H. Hudson’s 1885 novel, The Purple Land.
This final episode covers chapter 21 to the end. We examine how Hudson resolves the domestic plot, the travel plot, and the confrontation with the diabolical Don Hilario. We debate whether The Purple Land’s climax is or is not even climactic.
Then, we call in scholar Ilan Stavans, former OTP guest and editor of the U of Wisconsin Press edition of The Purple Land. Stavans ties up some of our loose ends and provides a broader historical and aesthetic context for Hudson’s project.
We hope you’ll enjoy this third episode on this fascinating and problematic novel. If you have a nomination for our 2026 One True Book Club selection (it must be Hemingway-relevant, but not by Hemingway), please email us at 1truepod@gmail.com.
Thank you as always for your support of One True Podcast!
Join us for a wide-ranging discussion about Hemingway’s cats!
Ernest Hemingway was one of the most famous cat lovers in all of American literature, so we celebrate his passion for cats with three conversations that provide us three different perspectives.
First, we talk to Alexa Morgan, director of public relations at the Hemingway Home in Key West. She is intimately familiar with the day-to-day operations of the present-day Hemingway cats, herding all fifty-seven of them on a daily basis.
Next, evolutionary theorist Axel Lange describes the science behind polydactyly, that extra toe Hemingway cats are known for. Axel discusses how polydactyly relates to Darwin’s work, how the extra toe affects the cat’s behavior, and what it tells us about genetics.
Finally, we visit with author and illustrator Edward Hemingway, grandson of Ernest and son of Gregory and Valerie. Eddie has used cats in his work before, and is currently at work incorporating Hemingway’s first six-toed cat into a new work.
This episode is dedicated to Edie Von Cannon, Michael’s boisterous and attention-hungry cat, who has mewed her way through many of our interviews.
Thanks for listening, and go give all your cats a belly rub in honor of this new One True Podcast episode!
About seventy-five years ago, scholar Philip Young’s “wound theory” revolutionized Hemingway studies with a thesis that argued that Hemingway’s entire body of work was a series of responses to the injury he suffered in 1918 during World War One.
Young’s audacious theory invited a slew of biographical and psychological readings of Hemingway’s work. Scholars incorporated trauma theory, ecology, history, and gender. Young inspired generations of scholars and also generated harsh responses, including Hemingway’s own vitriolic reaction.
Debra Moddelmog, the great Hemingway scholar who studied with Young at Penn State, unpacks the wound theory for us and sheds light on the man who developed it. She describes different applications of the theory, its limitations, the texts it illuminates, and its relevance to 21st-century readings.
Join us as we discuss the single most important theoretical model in the history of Hemingway studies and its iconic creator.
One True Podcast continues our summer book club on The Purple Land, the 1885 novel written by W.H. Hudson and read and re-read by Robert Cohn.
In this episode, we explore Chapters 12-20. We revisit the picaresque plot structure, discuss how the narrative moves between romance and revolution, explore how Hudson takes up the question of cultural relativism, and draw connections to The Sun Also Rises.
We hope you’ll join us in this close read of The Purple Land. We are using the handsome University of Wisconsin Press edition with an Introduction written by former One True Podcast guest, our friend Ilan Stavans.
Thank you as always for your support of One True Podcast!
On the happy occasion of Mark’s new Norton Library edition of A Farewell to Arms, One True Podcast goes deep into its vault. We are at last releasing to the general public one of our seldom-heard Patreon episodes, an exploration of the final chapter of A Farewell to Arms, the epic and heart-wrenching chapter 41.
We discuss Catherine’s behavior, the narrative’s disproportionate focus on Frederic as a witness, his eating and drinking, the medical staff, a couple of one true sentences, the ethics of reading someone else’s newspaper, and the notion that the ending of this novel may or may not represent Hemingway’s worldview.
After the unearthed Patreon episode, we continue the discussion, exploring Hemingway’s alternate endings and what that tells us about Hemingway’s artistic process.
We hope you’ll enjoy this wide-ranging discussion, ideally in the rain.
One True Podcast ushers in the summer by reading a book that is not by Hemingway, but is Hemingway-relevant: W.H. Hudson’s The Purple Land, the 1885 novel that Jake Barnes name-drops in The Sun Also Rises and then weaponizes to criticize Robert Cohn.
This episode covers the first 11 chapters, where we discuss the Hemingway-Hudson connection, this novel’s picaresque structure, the dramatic situation, the setting, and the various adventures that our hero experiences, including the problematic nature of his “intensely amorous” inclinations.
We hope you’ll join us in this slow read of The Purple Land. We are using the handsome University of Wisconsin Press edition with an Introduction written by former One True Podcast guest, our friend Ilan Stavans.
Thank you as always for your support of One True Podcast!
One True Podcast again toasts to the centenary of Hemingway’s In Our Time by examining “Cat in the Rain,” one of its so-called “marriage tales.”
We welcome John Beall to discuss the story’s setting, its composition, the dynamic of the marriage, its autobiographical inspiration, and how this story fits in to Hemingway’s other “frosty” marriages. We explore the symbolism of the cat, the omnipresence of the rain, repetition in the story… and we even wonder: what the heck is that guy reading that’s so interesting?
John Beall – author of the new book Hemingway’s Art of Revision: The Making of the Short Fiction – expertly guides us through the ambiguities of this tense, elliptical story. Thanks for listening!
“Who Murdered the Vets?” is one of the most important non-fiction pieces Hemingway ever wrote. This 1935 article for New Masses excoriated the Roosevelt administration’s careless supervision of World War I veterans who died during the Labor Day hurricane while they were living in workcamps along the Keys. Stationed there to help to build the overseas highway, more than 250 died as victims of the cataclysmic storm.
Hemingway wrote what he called his “2800 words of dynamite” in a frothing rage, furious at the irresponsibility of the government, shocked at what he had witnessed firsthand, and grieving for the veterans who survived the Great War, only to lose their lives at home.
To discuss this explosive article and its crucial context, we welcome James H. Meredith, the former President of the Hemingway Society. Jim’s perspective walks us through Hemingway’s approach to this tragedy and how he composed such a vivid, emotional polemic.
She called him “the most fascinating man I know.” He called her “the Kraut.” Hemingway’s relationship with the iconic entertainer Marlene Dietrich has been an intriguing wrinkle to both of their careers and lives. To separate myth from fact, and to allow us to learn more about Miss Dietrich and her singular accomplishments in song and cinema, we welcome Peter Riva, the grandson of the legendary actress.
In this episode, we explore how they met, why they clicked so powerfully, why they remained platonic, how she felt about his writing, and how he felt about her film performances. Peter Riva is a candid, generous guest who provides a unique perspective to Dietrich as a grandma and Hemingway as a memorable houseguest.
Join us for this discussion about the Hemingway-Dietrich relationship… and stay tuned for some surprise outro music!
After Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, became aware of his extramarital affair with Pauline Pfeiffer, she became resigned to the end of their marriage. Before she agreed to the divorce, however, she issued an extraordinary provision to Hemingway and Pauline: that they spend one hundred days apart! If they still wanted to stay together after those hundred days, Hadley would consent to the divorce.
To explore this bizarre episode in Hemingway’s life, we welcome Gioia Diliberto, biographer of Hadley Richardson, and Adam Long, director of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum, the family home of Pauline Pfeiffer. Diliberto and Long each share details about all the members of this messy love triangle and how it forms the legacy of the phase of Hemingway’s life that would inspire A Moveable Feast.
We discuss who these people were in 1926 and what they wanted, what motivated this 100-Day Challenge, all of its implications, and its outcome.
The great Italian scholar Martina Mastandrea, who spoke with us in 2023 to discuss "In Another Country," joins us again to talk about another Hemingway tale: "Out of Season."
After Mastandrea treats us to an Italian rendition of the opening to "Out of Season," we explore many aspects of the story, including its biographical inspiration, connections to other Hemingway texts (like "Cat in the Rain" and "Hills Like White Elephants"), the role Cortina plays as a setting, and ways to read the famous ending.
This celebrated story is always in-season, so please join us as Martina Mastandrea guides us through it!
When Ernest Hemingway was interviewed by George Plimpton in 1958, he listed Johann Sebastian Bach fourth among those forebears he learned the most from. “I should think,” he told Plimpton, “what one learns from composers and from the study of harmony and counterpoint would be obvious.” It isn’t.
So, to help us understand how Bach influenced Hemingway's writing – in particular the first page of A Farewell to Arms – we welcome organist and Bach scholar, David Yearsley.
With an expert to guide us, we explore Bach's biography and connections between these two artistic titans, discussing which of Bach's works Hemingway responded to most powerfully and how the music of “Mr. Johann” finds its way into Hemingway’s WWI novel as well as other writings, such as To Have and Have Not.
We are also privileged that David Yearsley agreed to play some Bach for us to illustrate counterpoint and other related ideas, so we hope you enjoy this special show!
Join us as Carl Eby takes us into the nooks and crannies of the Hemingway archives at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. We will discuss the legendary JFK #112 and JFK #113, two discarded and highly provocative chapters from Hemingway’s posthumous novel Islands in the Stream.
We explore where the discarded material in the JFK Library fits into Islands in the Stream, who cut it and why, and how Hemingway studies would have been different if the novel had included this charged material. We also closely examine certain words from these files, such as "perversions" and "surprize" and “devil.”
Eby is President of the Hemingway Society and has focused much of his research on Hemingway's posthumous work. Recently, he published Reading Hemingway's The Garden of Eden for Kent State University Press’s Reading Hemingway series. Eby has joined us previously for an episode on The Garden of Eden manuscripts, and he also inaugurated our One True Sentence series with One True Sentence #1, a discussion of Hemingway's "Paris 1922" sketches.
Thanks for your continued support of One True Podcast!
One True Podcast begins this year’s occasional commemoration of In Our Time’s 100th anniversary with a show devoted to one of its highlights. To discuss Hemingway’s classic story “Soldier’s Home,” we invite the author of Soldiers Once and Still, Alex Vernon.
We discuss Harold Krebs and his war experience on the Western Front of World War I, his painful reentry into his former life, and his strained relationship with his mother. We also examine the extraordinary language Hemingway uses to capture Krebs's tortured consciousness and explore this story’s placement among Hemingway’s career of chronicling men at war. As the author of the first literary biography of Tim O’Brien, Alex describes Krebs’s frustration at the difficulty of telling his own true war stories and compares it with the same idea in O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.
On this, our 150th episode of One True Podcast, join us for a conversation about an essential Hemingway short story. Thank you for listening, rating the program, and spreading the word!
Seventy-five years ago, Lillian Ross published “How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?” in The New Yorker, her longform profile of Hemingway’s 1950 visit to New York City. Ross spent time with Hemingway as he shopped for a coat, visited with Marlene Dietrich, took his son Patrick to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, met with Charles Scribner, and talked enthusiastically about his forthcoming novel, Across the River and into the Trees.This profile has been polarizing since its publication: Did Ross deliver a subtle takedown? Did Hemingway embarrass himself with his odd mannerisms? Should Hemingway never have agreed to it? Should The New Yorker never have published it? Is this, ultimately, the most intimate and penetrating portrait of the later Hemingway ever written?
To explore this iconic profile and the journalist who wrote it, we welcome Susan Morrison, who serves as Lillian Ross’s literary executor. Morrison is the Articles Editor at The New Yorker and the author of Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live.
We hope you enjoy this episode and always remember: “what you win in Boston, you lose in Chicago!”
What was Ernest Hemingway doing in 1925? Where was he? What were his important relationships? What were his challenges? What was he writing?
1925 is the year that put Hemingway on the map. To guide us through this crucial year, we welcome back J. Gerald Kennedy, author of Imagining Paris, editor of the Norton Critical Edition of In Our Time, and co-editor of what will become the final volume of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway. In this episode, we discuss the publication of In Our Time and the events that would inspire The Sun Also Rises; Hemingway's competitive streak and network of famous friends and rivals; the painting he bought and the influence of modern art on his writing; and much more.
We hope you enjoy one of our favorite traditions, spending our first show of the new year by going back one hundred years to explore Hemingway’s life, work, and world. Happy New Year!
Welcome to our eighteenth and final show celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
In this quirky narrative that would come to be known as “L’Envoi” in the following year’s In Our Time collection, our narrator meets a king and a queen in the garden, leading us to a discussion of The Beatles, gardens in in our time, Hemingway’s complex use of narrative perspective, the role of America within all of the various settings of these sketches, how his journalism spawns his fiction, and more. We also hand out awards for Favorite Sketch, Favorite Character, and Most Memorable Image in in our time.
Join us -- one more time -- as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Happy holidays from One True Podcast, and it wouldn’t be the holiday season without Suzanne del Gizzo—the celebrated editor of The Hemingway Review—here to discuss another one of Hemingway’s seasonally appropriate works. In previous years, we have talked together about “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” “Christmas on the Roof of the World,” “The Christmas Gift,” and “A North of Italy Christmas.” This year, we explore “The Blind Man’s Christmas Eve,” an article Hemingway wrote for The Toronto Star in December 1923.
With Suzanne, we place the story in its historical and biographical contexts, delve into the relationship between the main character and the curious narrative perspective, examine how physical and metaphorical blindness works in the story, and connect the story to other Hemingway works such as “The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," "Get a Seeing-Eyed Dog," and Islands in the Stream. We also think about the importance of the song “My Old Kentucky Home,” which the main character hears an Italian organ grinder play.
As a special gift to our listeners, we begin the episode with a reading of “The Blind Man’s Christmas Eve” by former guest Mackenzie Astin, star of The Facts of Life, The Magicians, and In Love and War, where he played the young Henry Villard opposite Chris O’Donnell’s Hemingway and Sandra Bullock’s Agnes von Kurowsky. We also end the episode with another treat--a moving rendition of "My Old Kentucky Home" by Hemingway scholar Michael Kim Roos, who appeared as a guest on one of our previous shows on A Farewell to Arms.
Thanks for another great year, everybody. Enjoy!
Welcome to the seventeenth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
Hemingway captures a scene out of the American newspapers, the execution by hanging of an Italian-American mobster, Sam Cardinella. We discuss Hemingway’s career-long treatment of executions and the behavior of those facing death, along with the detached behavior of those administering punishment. We parse out the discrepancy of a vocabulary word, and we also analyze the eventual placement of this episode into the dreamscape of a young Nick Adams. The power of this chapter represents one of the great achievements of this book.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Ruchika Tomar, the 2020 PEN/Hemingway winner for A Prayer for Travelers, shares her one true sentence from “A Very Short Story.”
Welcome to the sixteenth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
In this episode, Maera is gored and dies in a masterfully cinematic way. We explore Hemingway's description of the bullfighter's death and speculate about why Hemingway decided to kill off his character "Maera" when the real bullfighter was still alive when in our time was published. We also draw comparisons between this vignette and other Hemingway works like "A Banal Story" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," and consider its important placement in the later short story sequence of 1925.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Welcome to the fifteenth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
This episode on Maera and Luis extends Hemingway’s exploration of bullfighting and violence. We begin by discussing the narrator's identity, how it is revealed in the story, and why that matters; by the end of the episode, we focus attention on the final lines of the vignette ("Yes. Yes. Yes.), exploring the relationship between Hemingway's work and Molly Bloom's soliloquy that ends James Joyce's Ulysses. Throughout the episode, we're fascinated by the triangulation of the narrator, Maera, and Luis and how it structures this curious vignette.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
As One True Podcast winds down its ambitious year-long project of devoting an episode to each of the eighteen chapters in in our time, we visit with the man who wrote the book about the book, Milton A. Cohen.
Cohen’s study of the Paris in our time, Hemingway’s Laboratory, is a keen guide through the sketches and analyzes Hemingway as a writer finding his voice. In our interview with Cohen, he describes Hemingway’s artistry, the innovations he sees in the vignettes, some of his favorite moments in the book, and even things Hemingway left out from the manuscript.
Join us as Milton A. Cohen guides us through in our time!
Robert W. Trogdon joins One True Podcast to share the treasures of the new Library of America volume he has edited: A Farewell to Arms and Other Writings, 1927-1932. We discuss Hemingway and his life during those magical, turbulent years, and also the great work he produced.
From his second short story collection, Men Without Women to his second novel, A Farewell to Arms, to the unexpected turn his career takes, the bullfighting treatise titled Death in the Afternoon, Trogdon guides us through these works and these eventful years. Trogdon also discusses the various textual issues he faced while editing this volume, including the expletives of A Farewell to Arms, an inverted paragraph that nobody knew about, and Hemingway’s vision for the bullfighting photographs in Death in the Afternoon.
Join us as we discuss the second Hemingway offering from the Library of America with its editor!
Welcome to the fourteenth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
This episode continues Hemingway’s exploration of bullfighting and violence through a study of Nicanor Villalta. In two short paragraphs, Hemingway masterfully captures the movement of matador and bull, leading up to the pivotal image where "Villalta became one with the bull." We discuss how Hemingway depicts good vs. bad bullfighters; we consider the stylistic function of so many present participles in the vignette; and we touch on connections to The Sun Also Rises, Death in the Afternoon, and Across the River and Into the Trees.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Welcome to the thirteenth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
This episode continues Hemingway’s exploration of bullfighting and violence. This chapter is the second of the five consecutive bullfighting sketches Hemingway placed towards the end of in our time. A raucous crowd objects to a bad bullfight, leading to the humiliating cutting of a matador’s pigtails. We discuss the narrator’s relationship to the incompetent (but self-aware) matador, the notion of throwing things at sporting events, and the painful recognition of realizing you’re just not that good at something.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Stewart O’Nan, the prolific author of West of Sunset and other works of fiction and non-fiction, shares his one true sentence from “The End of Something.”
One True Podcast takes on another classic Hemingway short story as Olivia Carr Edenfield joins us to discuss “Cross-Country Snow,” the beloved Nick Adams story from In Our Time.
Prof. Edenfield discusses how this skiing trip links Nick’s past with his future, how it fits as a crucial pivot in the story cycle, the Nick-George relationship, the mysterious waitress, the wonderful description of skiing, how the story reflects Hemingway’s biography of the mid-1920s … and that curious title.
This episode on “Cross-Country Snow” is the latest installment of One True Podcast’s ambitious project to tackle every Hemingway short story. Join us for this latest effort!
Welcome to the twelfth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
In this episode, we discuss Hemingway's powerful depiction of a bullfighting scene between bull and horse. We start out with that famous "whack whacked" opening before turning to what might be an equally important and seriously overlooked (by us!) part of the story. In addition, we read this vignette in light of Hemingway's remarks about gored horses from The Sun Also Rises and Death in the Afternoon. As well, just as with previous episodes, we focus in on the last sentence and its massive implications.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Welcome to the eleventh of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
Listeners might be familiar with this vignette as the short story "The Revolutionist" from Hemingway's bigger collection In Our Time published in 1925. How does the vignette characterize the post-WWI communist revolution and its revolutionaries as well as counter-responses in Hungary, Italy, and Switzerland? Why does the narrator seem to fixate on classical painters, particularly the work of Mantegna? What are the connections between this story and other Hemingway works like A Farewell to Arms?In this episode, we respond to these questions and many more as we delve into a vignette that often gets glossed over!
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Javier Fuentes, the 2024 PEN/Hemingway winner for Countries of Origin, shares his one true sentence from "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."
Live from Bilbao! One True Podcast presents our show live from the 20th International Hemingway Conference in Bilbao, Spain. We welcome scholars Stacey Guill and Alberto Lena to explore Hemingway’s five stories of the Spanish Civil War. These obscure, under-discussed stories – including “The Denunciation,” “The Butterfly and the Tank,” and “Landscape With Figures” – become coherent and significant as our guests explore their roots in Spanish culture and history as well as Hemingway’s own life.
We learn about Hemingway’s perspective about the war, the way the stories set the groundwork for For Whom the Bell Tolls, his focus on “dignity” in the stories, and the ambiguity of his endings. This conversation will inspire you to visit or revisit these narratives, armed with the context Guill and Lena provide.
One True Podcast welcomes the great Larry Grimes to discuss “Today Is Friday,” the curious playlet from Men Without Women about three Roman soldiers and a Jewish barman discussing Jesus’s crucifixion.
This interview explores the resonance of the story and what it tells us about Hemingway’s lifelong quest for the religious experience. We discuss Hemingway’s fascination with executions, masculine Christianity, and hybrid religions. We also explore how the 3rd Roman Soldier unexpectedly emerges as one of the great characters of Hemingway’s short fiction.
“Today Is Friday” continues One True Podcast’s ambitious project of tackling every Hemingway short story. Join us for this latest effort!
Welcome to the tenth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
This chapter will be familiar to many readers as the bitter narrative that would later be presented as “A Very Short Story.” Here, this vignette is the longest in this volume. Is it also the most autobiographical? We discuss the ill-fated World War I love affair between our hero and Ag (later Luz), doomed due to an insurmountable age gap, our hero’s bad attitude, the presence of smooth-talking Italians, and an ocean in between them. Hemingway turned the early trauma of a Dear John letter into this raw, painful self-examination that attempted to exorcise his own experiences. In this episode we also explore how this chapter provides a fascinating precis of this relationship’s fuller articulation in A Farewell to Arms.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Welcome to the ninth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
This chapter is the first of the vignettes set in America, a fictionalized account of a cigar store robbery that Hemingway learned about in Kansas City in 1917. We discuss this sketch’s depiction of national confusion, moral ambiguity, attitudes towards immigrants, and how Hemingway’s specific language renders a complex scene. Through our conversation, the subtle division emerges between Drevitts and Boyle and how Hemingway’s characters are able to say things without stating them.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
One True Podcast celebrates the publication of Volume 6 of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway by welcoming two of its editors, Sandra Spanier and Verna Kale. These letters, spanning 1934-1936, find Hemingway in Key West, fishing, publishing Green Hills of Africa, producing his Esquire dispatches, making his famous reaction to the Florida hurricane of 1935, and negotiating the competing demands of life, art, business, and celebrity.
We discuss Hemingway’s relationships with his correspondents: Arnold Gingrich of Esquire, Maxwell Perkins of Scribner’s, Jane Mason, critic Ivan Kashkin, John Dos Passos, and more.
Join us as we visit once again with the Hemingway Letters team to explore Hemingway’s letters from these crucial years!
We continue our exploration of Hemingway's short stories with his masterful narrative, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." To aid us in this effort, we're joined by Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, who is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico and served as the 2022 Obama Fellow at the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies. Herlihy-Mera is the author of, among other works, Decolonizing American Spanish.
In this conversation, we examine key dynamics between the major characters in this very short story. Along the way, we ponder the various religious and existential themes that emerge as well as the bilingual nature of the story and how to read and appreciate the story in translation.
Join us as we meet up with two waiters and an old man in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."
Welcome to the eighth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
On the heels of the vignette about Nick's war injury, this bombardment scene evokes the idea that there are no atheists in foxholes while, at the same time, capturing the transactional nature of religion during wartime. We discuss various ways this vignette treats the topic of religion, try to gain a sense of the narrator's identity, and draw connections to other works such as A Farewell to Arms and "A Way You'll Never Be."
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Welcome to the seventh of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
In this important vignette, Hemingway depicts Nick's war injury and his "separate peace" with Rinaldi. We discuss Hemingway's own wounding during WWI, key differences between the final version of the vignette and early drafts, and Young's influential ideas about the "wound theory." We also take on various questions: Is Rinaldi dead by the end of the vignette? Is the protagonist Nick Adams and, if so, what do we make of the various, inconsistent accounts of his war wounding here and in other stories. And much more.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
The Spanish Civil War was a brutal and maddeningly complex historical event, with enormous repercussions on Ernest Hemingway’s life and career. To guide us through the many moving parts and frayed relationships, we welcome back Amanda Vaill to One True Podcast.
Vaill’s essential book, Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War, guides us through the events of the war, including the private adventures of Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, John Dos Passos, Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and more. We discuss what the war meant to Hemingway and his writing that would follow, and how many of his relationships would never be the same.
Julie Schumacher, author of The Dear Committee Trilogy (Dear Committee Members, The Shakespeare Requirement , and The English Experience), shares her one true sentence from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. As Schumacher explores, Hemingway's short, terse writing often leads to some "long, meandering, winding roads of sentences" like the one she's chosen for this episode. In addition, she raises intriguing questions about how Hemingway drafted the sentence, examines what makes certain characters and dialogue so compelling in The Sun Also Rises, and discusses her own creative process.
Welcome to the sixth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
The scene depicts the execution of six Greek officials toward the end of 1922. In this episode, we discuss the history of that trial and execution, the journalistic coverage of events, and Hemingway's fictional treatment of the execution. We also relate this vignette to other works, such as A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and even Tintoretto's Crucifixion. We also continue examining how the first third of the book starts cohering into a larger project.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Welcome to the fifth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
This scene of a barricade and a retreat continues Hemingway's brilliant depictions of Battle of Mons. In this episode, we explore some historical aspects of that retreat, compare the narrative voice and point of view to chapter four, and much more. As always, we examine how these first five vignettes are cohering into a larger project.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
The two great titans of twentieth-century American literature – Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner – never met. They corresponded only a time or two; however, they were always on each other’s minds. Their hyper-awareness of the other’s recent work led sometimes to envy, sometimes to awe, and frequently to catty comments.
To help us learn more about these two men and their fraught relationship, we invite Prof. Ahmed Honeini of Royal Holloway, University of London, to the program. Honeini is the founder of Faulkner Studies in the UK and has written the superb book, William Faulkner and Mortality: A Fine Dead Sound.
Honeini expertly guides us through Hemingway and Faulkner’s lives, works, and relationship as One True Podcast continues its investigation of Hemingway’s many rivalries.
This episode will focus on the Spanish Civil War and how one particular incident – the murder of accused Fascist spy José Robles – ruptured the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos.
To sort out the many moving parts to this chapter of Hemingway’s life, we welcome Stephen Koch, the author of The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of José Robles. Koch takes us through the complicated relationship between Hemingway and Dos Passos, what ended it, and how it ended. Koch also explores Robles’s role in Spain, Martha Gellhorn’s presence, and the legacy of this intricate web of relationships.
Join us as we discuss Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Robles Affair!
Welcome to the fourth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
At 75 words, this short scene describes the Battle of Mons. To Ezra Pound, Hemingway would refer to this conflict (from August 1914 at the very beginning of the First World War) as "clear and noble." In this episode, we discuss the historical aspects of the battle, Hemingway's friendship with the British soldier Eric Edward “Chink” Dorman-Smith, and the mixture of nobility, naivety, and absurdity that form the atmosphere of this vignette. We also examine how these first four vignettes are beginning to cohere into a larger project.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
Welcome to the third of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
In this scene, Hemingway describes the minarets rising over the landscape overlooking the harrowing evacuation at the Greco-Turkish War in 1922. Hemingway distills the vast scope of inhumanity into the expression of one scared child. We discuss how this scene intersects with his biographical experiences, his journalism, and how the first three vignettes are beginning to cohere into a larger project.
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
American modernism is a concept that is so slippery that even scholars don’t always agree on its definition. Is it a historical era, or a literary technique? Was Ernest Hemingway even a modernist? If so, which of his works are most modernistic?
For this discussion, we turn to Mark Whalan, editor of the compendious new volume, Cambridge History of American Modernism, and Karen Leick, one of its contributors, who places Hemingway in a conversation with other American modernists including Stein, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald. We discuss his work, his celebrity, the difference between the myth and the man, and the modern world in which he lived and wrote.
Join us for this fascinating conversation that tackles Hemingway and his place in the tradition of American literature!
Mark Kurlansky, the author of dozens of books of fiction, nonfiction, and children's literature (including Cod, Salt, and The Importance of Not Being Ernest), shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's story "In Another Country."
Welcome to the second of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.
In this scene, Hemingway puts us into a chaotic bullfighting scene, with gorings, hooting crowds, and a kid who tries to save the day. We discuss how this early sketch prefigures Hemingway’s career-long fascination with the bullfight and the problem of depicting it.
Just two chapters into this year-long read of in our time, patterns are beginning to emerge. Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
One True Podcast reads in our time! Welcome to the first of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of Hemingway’s book of vignettes.
Starting with the unforgettable opening salvo -- “Everybody was drunk” -- chapter one describes a kitchen corporal in a chaotic battery on the way to the Champagne during World War I. We explore these 112 words and what they reveal about Hemingway’s experimentation, his challenging style, and his attitude about war as a young man. As Hemingway writes, “It was funny going along that road.”
Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!
What was Ernest Hemingway doing in 1924? Where was he? What were his important relationships? What were his challenges? What was he writing?
The excellent Verna Kale -- Hemingway biographer and Associate Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project -- joins us to trace Hemingway’s experiences one hundred years ago, walking us through his biography, his letters, his finances, and even some of his poetry. According to Kale, Hemingway wasn’t quite Hemingway yet, but he was right on the cusp.
We hope you enjoy one of our favorite traditions, spending our first show of the new year by going back one hundred years to explore Hemingway’s life, work, and world. Happy New Year!
‘Tis the season! And it wouldn’t be the holiday season without welcoming Suzanne del Gizzo to discuss a seasonally appropriate Hemingway work. In this episode, we examine “A North of Italy of Christmas,” a raucous article he wrote for the Toronto Daily Star one hundred years ago.
Del Gizzo – the celebrated editor of The Hemingway Review -- discusses the absurd humor in the piece, all the mistletoe, old favorite Chink Dorman-Smith, and Hemingway’s early writing style. She unpacks the curious title, offers some unexpected background on the origin of the mistletoe tradition, and places the article in its biographical context. We end the interview with del Gizzo’s thoughts on the state of Hemingway studies as 2023 draws to a close.
And as a special treat to our listeners, we begin the episode with a reading of “A North of Italy Christmas” by former guest Mackenzie Astin, star of The Facts of Life, The Magicians, and In Love and War, where he played the young Henry Villard opposite Chris O’Donnell’s Hemingway and Sandra Bullock’s Agnes von Kurowsky.
Thanks for a great 2023, everybody! Enjoy!
Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, author of the short story collection The Smallest of Entryways and Ernest's Way: An International Journey Through Hemingway's Life, shares her one true sentence from her great-grandfather's story "Big Two-Hearted River."
The longest and most mutually beneficial relationship of Ernest Hemingway’s life was with the Charles Scribner's Sons publishing house, a partnership that continues to the present day. Charles Scribner III joins the show to discuss his family’s legacy in publishing, the storied history of Scribner, and Hemingway’s history with the company.
We discuss Scribner III’s new book, Scribners: Five Generations in Publishing, which describes the history of the publishing house, including its relationship with legendary authors and its iconic editor, Maxwell Perkins.
Join us for this fascinating look at Scribner from the inside!
Tim O'Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, Dad's Maybe Book, and America Fantastica, shares his one true sentence from The Sun Also Rises. Toward the end of the episode, we also reflect on Tim's riveting speech at Dominican University during the 2016 Hemingway Society conference in Oak Park, Illinois.
Join us for a special episode devoted to Lieutenant Rinaldo Rinaldi from A Farewell to Arms!
On this episode, scholar Michael Kim Roos (co-author of the essential Reading Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms) explores the many dimensions of this beloved character. We discuss Rinaldi’s role as Frederic Henry’s best friend, his development over the course of the novel, Hemingway’s historical inspiration for this character, and the way Rinaldi, a man of science and sensualism, represents one of the novel’s most important themes. In addition, we cover Rinaldi’s iconic appearance as Nick Adams’s audience in Chapter VI of In Our Time.
“How do you like that, baby?”
Have you ever read “The Porter”? In this episode, we take you to a seldom-visited corner of Hemingway’s short story catalogue to discuss this fascinating outtake from his discarded novel about a father-son train trip across the United States into Canada.
For guidance over this unfamiliar terrain, we turn to the great Ian Marshall, who explains the racial, class, and historical elements of this tale. We discuss how Hemingway captures the American landscape, the father-son relationship, where this story fits into Hemingway’s career, and even how “The Porter” relates to Johnny Cash’s “Hey Porter.”
Join us as Prof. Marshall helps us celebrate Hemingway’s achievements as a short story writer with this wonderful and illuminating discussion!
Hemingway coined the phrase “grace under pressure” in a 1926 letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Since then, the phrase has been repeated like a mantra to describe Hemingway’s attitude toward life and death, his definition of courage, and is regularly used as a lens through which to view his fiction.
On this episode, scholar David Wyatt joins us to discuss the significance and legacy of “grace under pressure.” Over the course of the interview, we apply the model of “grace under pressure” to various examples from Hemingway’s career: A Farewell to Arms, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and more.
Wyatt distinguishes “grace under pressure” from the simplistic descriptions of machismo that often burden considerations of Hemingway’s work. Join us for this illuminating conversation on a classic Hemingway theme with a renowned Hemingway scholar!
Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River and Small Mercies, shares his one true sentence from A Moveable Feast.
In this episode, One True Podcast take on the white whale of Hemingway studies: the unpublished manuscript of The Garden of Eden. Although the published version we know may be shocking, the sprawling manuscript reveals even more dimensions of this challenging text and the many complexities of its author.
For this discussion, we turn to Hemingway Society President Carl Eby, who shares what he’s learned about the manuscript through more than thirty years of studying it and many, many hours in the Kennedy Archives, poring over Ernest Hemingway’s words than never made the final edit.
We learn about the composition of the novel, the African strain to the narrative, the legendary discarded subplot, the many artistic and literary allusions, Hemingway’s vision for ending the novel, and much more.
This interview was conducted as Eby’s new study Reading Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden is being published, an essential guide to the novel that explores the published edition and its manuscript in meticulous detail.
Oscar Hokeah, winner of the 2023 PEN/Hemingway Award for Calling for a Blanket Dance, shares his one true sentence from The Old Man and the Sea.
We take a look at Hemingway’s intersection with Italian Fascism by examining two of its most volatile figures, Gabriele D’Annunzio and Ezra Pound.
In this episode, we talk to Lucy Hughes-Hallett, D’Annunzio’s award-winning biographer, who discusses this notorious firebrand’s military career, love affairs, and artistic legacy. Hughes-Hallett also suggests D’Annunzio’s unspoken role in Hemingway’s most famous passage from A Farewell to Arms.
Next, Lauren Arrington, author of The Poets of Rapallo, joins us to explore Pound’s poetry, his influence on other poets, his loathsome ideology, and his relationship with Hemingway.
Italian Fascism is the sad backdrop to Hemingway’s Italian experience. We hope you enjoy our conversations with these two eminent scholars!
For our 100th episode, One True Podcast investigates the legend of the lost manuscripts!
In December 1922, Hemingway’s first wife Hadley, misplaced a suitcase filled with the young Hemingway’s unpublished writing. Since then, this episode has invited intense speculation: Was this early work stolen? Did it end up in the garbage? Did Hadley subconsciously want the work to be stolen?
In order to explore the unknowable, we turn to four novelists who each use this mysterious episode as the inspiration for a novel. Join us as Sherry Harris (The Gun Also Rises, 2019), David Berens (The Hemingway Code, 2022), Diane Gilbert Madsen (Hunting for Hemingway, 2010), and Dennis McDougal (Hemingway’s Suitcase, 2017) talk about how the manuscripts inspired their own fiction, what they think happened to the suitcase, how Hadley might have felt, and the challenge of writing about Hemingway.
We also discuss one of our “one true sentences” that describes how Hemingway felt “in the night” after confirming that all of his work was gone.
Enjoy this episode and all of its speculation! And thank you for supporting One True Podcast over the first one hundred episodes!
Robert Pinsky, U.S. Poet Laureate from 1997 to 2000 and author of The Figured Wheel and Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet (among other phenomenal works), shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's Paris Reviewinterview.
The legendary feminist critic Judith Fetterley joins us to discuss her brilliant and incendiary work on A Farewell to Arms, a piece from 1978 that has endured as one of the definitive feminist critiques of Hemingway.
Prof. Fetterley discusses protagonist Frederic Henry’s self-pity and self-absorption, Catherine’s obsequiousness, and Hemingway’s design of the novel that leads Fetterley to conclude that Catherine “dies because she is a woman.”
We go on to discuss Hemingway’s style, the theme of childbirth in Hemingway’s work, and how Fetterley’s feminist views in the 1970s apply to today’s reader. Join us for this special episode!
We head into the heart of the sea with award-winning historian Nathaniel Philbrick to discuss Hemingway, Melville, and where these American writers share a vision and where they part.
Philbrick discusses The Old Man and the Seaand Moby-Dickas American classics that overlap and speak to each other across the years. He also covers the short story "After the Storm" as an essential narrative of Hemingway's vision of the sea. Throughout, Philbrick examines how Hemingway and Melville have become two of American literature's most enduring figures.
So join us for this maritime adventure with Nathaniel Philbrick, one of America's most beloved voices.
Kerri Maher, author of The Paris Bookseller, shares her one true sentence from Hemingway's A Moveable Feast.
Ernest Hemingway’s Red Cross experience in Italy during World War I was short, but it changed the course of his life and his writing. From being wounding in July 1918 to the abrupt end to his relationship with nurse Agnes Von Kurowsky, Hemingway would revisit those traumas for the rest of his life and write about them for his entire career.
This pair of tumultuous experiences led to a fascinating book – Hemingway in Love and War – co-written by Hemingway’s hospital roommate Henry Serrano Villard and scholar James Nagel. This book collects Villard’s Red Cross memoir, Von Kurowsky’s wartime diary and letters to Hemingway, as well as Prof. Nagel’s insightful essay about Hemingway’s experiences.
For this show devoted to Hemingway in Love and War, we are lucky to be joined by both Prof. Nagel and Henry Villard's son, who produced the cinematic adaptation of the book, Dimitri Villard.
Actor Mackenzie Astin joins us to discuss the 1996 movie In Love and War, the narrative of Hemingway’s wounding in World War I and subsequent romance with nurse Agnes Von Kurowsky.
Directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Chris O’Donnell, Sandra Bullock, Emilio Bonucci, as well as Astin, this war epic depicts the upheaval that World War I created in the life of the teenaged Hemingway and others.
Astin discusses Attenborough’s benevolent presence on the set, the performance of the stars, Venice at sunrise, and he comments on this eternal narrative of a young man going to war, falling in love, and reconciling with the violence of the modern world.
One True Podcast continues our exploration of the always complicated world of Hemingway’s volatile “friendships” with an episode devoted to Gertrude Stein.
We turn to scholar Barbara Will who discusses the things Miss Stein instructed Hemingway about, both personally and professionally. We cover Stein’s background and education, her depiction in A Moveable Feast, her role in Modernism, her politics during World War I and World War II, the way things ended between her and Hemingway, and some of her greatest writings.
Prof. Will also explains how “There’s no there there” is a perfect illustration of Stein’s approach to art, in all its mysterious brilliance. Join us for this fascinating episode!
Jay McInerney, (bestselling author of Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, How It Ended, and most recently Bright, Precious Days) shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."
John Hemingway - grandson of Ernest and son of Gregory -- shares his remarkable story with us. We explore John's important book, Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir, his revealing and unsparing account of his life as a Hemingway.
We cover Ernest's volatile relationship with John's father, a history that includes affection and intimate understanding, but also correspondence filled with recriminations. Our discussion of the Ernest-Gregory relationship leads to an illuminating examination of fathers and sons, gender fluidity, mental health, and much more. John also describes his travels and his own writing, and he recalls the close bond he developed with his great-uncle Leicester.
Join us for this special discussion of the Hemingways with John Hemingway!
Is “Hills Like White Elephants” Hemingway’s greatest short story ever, or only his most famous?
Bolstering the case for “Hills Like White Elephants” as the G.O.A.T., esteemed scholar Russ Pottle joins us to explain the story’s composition, imagery, historical and biographical contexts, and unforgettable dialogue.
Pottle helps us read between the lines in the ways Hemingway characterizes Jig and the American through their dialogue and their silence, and through their actions. We figure out exactly how one can wait “reasonably” for a train, and what Hemingway means by the ambiguous ending when Jig says she “feels fine.” And would you please please please please please please please listen for a special guest appearance from old friend Miriam Mandel?
Ilan Stavans, publisher of Restless Books and author of numerous works including Quixote and What is American Literature?, shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.
For an episode devoted to Hadley Richardson, we are proud to welcome Gioia Diliberto, esteemed writer and author of many books, including Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway’s First Wife.
We explore Hadley’s difficult childhood, her time in Paris with Hemingway, the dissolution of their marriage, the loss of Hemingway’s manuscripts, the famous “100-day separation” pact, and the rest of their legendary relationship. Diliberto discusses the revelations of the Sokoloff tapes, Hadley’s recorded reminiscences of Hemingway many decades later. We learn how Hadley felt about A Moveable Feast, Pauline Pfeiffer, and also Hemingway’s suicide.
Join us for an interview about Hadley with her definitive biographer.
The great Italian scholar Martina Mastandrea discusses “In Another Country,” one of Hemingway’s finest short stories.
After Mastandrea treats us to an Italian rendition of the famous opening paragraph, we explore the many treasures of the story: Why did F. Scott Fitzgerald admire the first sentence of the story so much? Is this a Nick Adams story? What does it tell us about Hemingway's perspective on war? What's the difference between our protagonist and the hunting hawks? Why is the major so insistent on speaking Italian grammatically…. and never marrying?
Join us in our discussion and celebration of “In Another Country” and then go re-read it!
Naomi Wood, author of Mrs. Hemingway, shares her one true sentence from a letter Hemingway wrote to friends Gerald and Sara Murphy after the death of their son, Baoth, in 1935.
Happy New Year from One True Podcast! We usher in 2023 with our new year's tradition of wondering what Ernest Hemingway was doing one hundred years ago. In 1923, what was Hemingway writing? Where did he live? Who were his friends and enemies? How was his marriage going? And what was on the horizon?
To answer these questions, we turn to his biographer, James M. Hutchisson, emeritus professor at The Citadel and author of Ernest Hemingway: A New Life. Hutchisson describes Hemingway’s trajectory during this year of transition, a young man recuperating from trauma and loss to a striking transformation from poet to journalist to fiction writer on the cusp of greatness.
Happy listening and happy 2023!
We welcome back Suzanne del Gizzo to ring in the season with a discussion of “The Christmas Gift,” Hemingway’s account of his 1954 plane crashes in East Africa.
Del Gizzo, editor of The Hemingway Review and widely published scholar, guides us through this extraordinary piece originally written for Look magazine, its role in Hemingway’s self-mythologizing, its examination of his near-death experience, its representation of Mary, and how the article both reveals and obscures what actually happened.
It has been a triumphant 2022 for One True Podcast, so we hope you’ll enjoy unwrapping this gift of an episode. Thank you for listening and supporting the show.
Michael Mewshaw, author of numerous novels and nonfiction works (including Year of the Gun, The Lost Prince, and the forthcoming My Man in Antibes: Getting to Know Graham Greene) shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.
We are joined by legendary scholar Jackson Bryer, who explains the origins and implications of a notorious concept: the Hemingway code.
When the code was introduced in the 1950s by influential scholar Philip Young, what did he intend it to mean? What is a "code hero"? What is a "Hemingway hero"? What did Hemingway mean by “grace under pressure”? Bryer helps us explore the impact and legacy of the code, its relevance today and its limitations, ultimately suggesting how it might enrich our experience of reading Hemingway’s work.
We discuss numerous examples from Hemingway's works to discover how frequently the idea of the code appears: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea, along with shorter works such as "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio."
We welcome prolific scholar Don Daiker to help us celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Nick Adams Stories. We discuss the volume’s impact and legacy, Philip Young’s controversial editorial decisions, the sequencing, and the characterization of Nick himself, in all of his various phases.
Which stories does Daiker consider underrated? Is Dr. Adams unjustly criticized as cold and unloving? What is the role of “The Last Good Country,” the longest story in the volume? Is “Big Two-Hearted River” ultimately affirmative or tragic?
We tackle these issues and much, much more as we examine The Nick Adams Stories with its most enthusiastic advocate and its shrewdest analyst.
Joshua Ferris, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for his novel Then We Came to the End, joins us to discuss his one true sentence from The Sun Also Rises.
One hundred years ago, in September 1922, Turkish forces torched the port city of Smyrna in a hellish episode towards the end of the Greco-Turkish War. The ensuing evacuation, with its chaos and grisly violence, inspired Hemingway’s journalism as well as his short fiction.
Hemingway’s most enduring effort to capture this atrocity is "On the Quai at Smyrna," which would become the first story in his collection In Our Time. This masterpiece of irony with its memorable narrative voice has intrigued readers, even as its historical basis has been less discussed, especially by American readers.
To help us penetrate this puzzling narrative, we are joined by Hariclea Zengos, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of English at the American University of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. Prof. Zengos guides us through the tragic historical roots of “On the Quai at Smyrna” as well as the story’s structure, voice, its unforgettable imagery, and its devastating opening and closing lines.
We are asking the entire One True Podcast community to contribute to the Hurricane Ian relief effort. Our production studios are in Fort Myers, Florida, which took the brunt of the storm, so we want to do anything we can to lend a hand. This episode honors the recovery effort by urging our listeners to go to www.communitycooperative.com and give generously to provide direct help to those who suffered from the hurricane.
Fittingly, we will devote this One True Fundraiser to a lively discussion of Hemingway’s hardboiled short story, “After the Storm,” set in the aftermath of the devastating hurricane of 1919. A man is choked and another guy gets his arm muscle slashed in just the first paragraph! To sort out all the action, we are joined by our friend and first-ever guest, Kirk Curnutt, who lends his expertise on Hemingway and Key West history and culture.
We hope you’ll enjoy the three-way discussion and we also hope you’ll donate to www.communitycooperative.com to help the recovery! Thank you!
Kawai Strong Washburn, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for his novel Sharks in the Time of Saviors, joins us to discuss his one true sentence from "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."
Timothy Christian, author of Hemingway's Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway, joins us for a conversation about Hemingway's fourth and final wife.
Our wide-ranging interview covers Mary's life before, during, and after Hemingway. We explore Mary's family, her early life and education, including her impressive career as a journalist. We cover her first encounter with Hemingway in London during World War II, the development of their sometimes-volatile relationship, and her crucial role in shaping Hemingway's legacy and her own. Christian expertly guides us through the true history behind the story of Hemingway's widow.
One True Podcast examines the deadly category 5 hurricane that ravaged the Florida Keys over Labor Day weekend in 1935, both from a historical perspective and a fictional treatment.
We first hear from historian Thomas Neil Knowles, author of Category 5: The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, who describes the deadly weather system, its devastating toll on the veterans stationed along the Keys, the bureaucratic inefficiencies, and its legacy.
Next, we are joined by Erika Robuck, award-winning author of Hemingway’s Girl, which uses the 1935 hurricane as a historical touchstone. She discusses her approach to fictionalizing Hemingway, how she researched the hurricane, her visits to the Keys, and a remarkable note she received from the housekeeper of the Hemingway house in Key West.
This episode also features a reading from Hemingway’s scathing essay “Who Murdered the Vets?” performed by Benjamin Bravard.
Billy Collins, the author of numerous collections of poetry and the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003 , shares his one true sentence from "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."
In this live interview from the 19th Biennial Hemingway Society Conference in Sheridan, Wyoming, we talk with John Sutton and Chris Warren about Hemingway's summers spent in Wyoming and Montana and how his experiences in the American West left their mark on his stories and novels.
John Sutton is the director of the NEH “Creating Humanities Communities along Wyoming's Hemingway Highway” Grant project. Chris Warren is the author of Ernest Hemingway in the Yellowstone High Country.
During this interview, we explore the lack of critical attention on Hemingway's time in this part of the U.S.; friendships he made (and the friends he invited) out west; his likening of Wyoming to Spain, and Spain to Africa; key locations, such as Spear-O-Wigwam, L Bar T, Pilot, Index, and much more; and, of course, numerous novels and stories, including A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio," and "A Man of the World."
Craig Johnson, author of the widely celebrated Longmire series, shares his one true sentence from "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."
In the lead-up to the Hemingway Society conference in Wyoming and Montana, we welcome Darla Worden to explore some fascinating connections between Hemingway and the American West.
Worden is the author of the book Cockeyed Happy: Ernest Hemingway's Wyoming Summers with Pauline. She's also the founder and director of the Left Bank Writers Retreat in Paris and the Wyoming Writers Retreat.
Although we may not associate Hemingway with the American West, Worden describes the importance of Hemingway's summers in Wyoming in the late 20s and 30s, his writing of A Farewell to Arms, his time with his second wife Pauline, and his love of the outdoors. Worden uses these Wyoming days to examine Hemingway's evolving persona, the complexities of his marriage and fatherhood, and the way Wyoming factors into his fiction. We even get the chance to discuss the obscure story from Winner Take Nothing, "Wine of Wyoming"!
Jennifer Haigh, author of Mrs. Kimble and Mercy Street,joins us to talk about her one true sentence from the short story "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot."
In 1986, twenty-five years after Hemingway’s death, Scribner’s published a coherent portion of his sprawling manuscript called The Garden of Eden. This publication changed the way we view Hemingway’s engagement with gender and sexuality, and remains his most daring novel ever.
In order to make that novel publishable, Scribner’s called on a gentleman named Tom Jenks to do the editing. Jenks hauled the manuscript home on the New York City subway in shopping bags and began his work, which was one of the most high-profile editorial jobs in the history of American literature.
Jenks joins One True Podcast to discuss his efforts with The Garden of Eden – his editing strategy, assessment of Hemingway’s work, and thoughts about the book’s legacy. Since 1986, Jenks has discussed his Hemingway work only sparingly, so his frank discussion is a rare treat.
Today’s episode investigates two largely forgotten figures from Hemingway’s past: Lewis Galantière and Guy Hickok. Galantière was a critic who befriended Hemingway in the early Paris years, and they maintained a friendship and correspondence for many years. Hickok was Hemingway’s journalist buddy who accompanied him through Italy for the notorious March 1927 trip that spawned “Che Ti Dice La Patria?”
To discuss these men and their respective relationships to Hemingway, we welcome their descendants and chroniclers: Mark I. Lurie, author of Galantière: The Lost Generation’s Forgotten Man, and Rufus Hickok, author of The Paris Bureau: How a Brooklyn Journalist Survived Jazz Age Paris with Help from Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound and his Family.Join us for our two conversations as we learn more about these friends of Hemingway and the relationships they fostered through the formative years of the 1920s.
David Frum, staff writer at The Atlantic, author of numerous books including Trumpocracy and Trumpocalypse, and speechwriter for President George W. Bush, joins us to talk about his one true sentence from A Farewell to Arms.
Andrew Feldman joins us to talk about his book Ernesto: The Untold Story of Hemingway in Revolutionary Cuba.What did Cuba mean to Papa and what has Papa meant to Cuba? To explore the place where Hemingway spent much of his adult life and Ernest became Ernesto, we discuss Hemingway's relationship to the Cuban people, his engagement with Cuban politics, and some of his greatest works, including The Old Man and the Sea and A Moveable Feast.
Feldman gives One True Podcast a debrief on his extraordinary two-year research trip to Havana and its environs, where he spent the majority of his time in Hemingway's storied home, the Finca Vigía.
Hemingway’s first book of short stories, In Our Time, is the most experimental work of his career and his most challenging. It is also an early masterpiece, with brutal, opaque stories like “Indian Camp,” “The Battler,” and "Soldier's Home."
For this episode,we are joined by J. Gerald Kennedy, editor of the new Norton Critical Edition of In Our Time, to discuss the emergence of the Hemingway style, the book as a narrative sequence, its composition, its legacy, and even the discarded fragment of metafiction called “On Writing.”
From classics like “Big Two-Hearted River” to less-discussed stories and vignettes, Kennedy guides us through this fascinating Hemingway work. Join us!
Michael Katakis, photographer and author of A Thousand Shards of Glass, Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from a Life, and Dangerous Men,joins us to talk about his one true sentence from the short story "Indian Camp."
The pride of Arkansas, Ruth A. Hawkins, joins the show for an illuminating episode on Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer.
Hawkins draws from her definitive book Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow to discuss Pfeiffer’s family and upbringing, her controversial friendship with Hadley, her marriage to Ernest, her motherhood, the mysterious details of her death, and her legacy.
Although the Hemingway-Pfeiffer marriage is often ignored or even maligned, new dimensions to their relationship emerge through our conversation as Hawkins traces their history together, both the happiness and sorrow.
Join us for a conversation about one of Hemingway's most beloved secondary characters: the hard-drinking, fun-loving, quick-witted writer, fly fisher, and amateur taxidermist, Bill Gorton from The Sun Also Rises.
Michael Thurston, editor of the new Norton Critical Edition of The Sun Also Rises, guides us through Bill's friendship with Jake, explores the historical people who inspired his creation, analyzes Bill's role in the novel, and also pins down some of his more arcane allusions.
This episode is a simple exchange of values: give it a listen and be treated to a lively discussion of a hilarious character in Hemingway's early masterpiece.
Brian Turner, author of Here, Bullet and My Life as a Foreign Country,joins us to talk about his one true sentence from The Old Man and the Sea.
Meet us at rue Delambre for a memorable chat with Sarah Churchwell about the way Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast has shaped the way we think about the Hemingway-Fitzgerald relationship.
What are the repercussions of Hemingway getting the last word on the Fitzgerald legacy? How much of what Hemingway wrote is even true? What were Hemingway’s strategies as he described himself, Fitzgerald, Zelda, and even Bumby in the alcohol-soaked distant memories of 1920s Paris? And is the butterfly epigraph a backhanded compliment or a forehanded insult?
Sarah Churchwell -- author of the excellent Gatsby study, Careless People – takes us deep into the drafting, editing, and legacy of A Moveable Feast and its powerful role in defining the enduring popular conception of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
We are joined by Ryan Hediger to get to the bottom of Hemingway's genre-bending and gruesomely descriptive "A Natural History of the Dead."
First published in Hemingway's bullfighting treatise Death in the Afternoon in 1932 and then reprinted a year later in Winner Take Nothing, this work gives us a chance to consider Hemingway's treatment of death in his work, as well as the artist's obligation to depict violence with a scientific objectivity.
Hediger discusses the way "A Natural History of the Dead" simultaneously satirizes the nature writers that preceded Hemingway, while also providing a window into Hemingway's own complex engagement with the natural world.
Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness, Deep Creek, and Contents May Have Shifted,joins us to talk about her one true Hemingway sentence.
We usher in 2022 by exploring what Hemingway was doing one hundred years ago.
Mary V. Dearborn, the author of Ernest Hemingway: A Biography, joins the show to discuss Hemingway’s writing from 1922, his formative experiences as a journalist, and the notorious lost manuscripts last seen in Paris’s Gare de Lyon. For literary modernism, 1922 is an annus mirabilis, and we celebrate Hemingway’s own 1922, as he makes his first steps onto the global stage.
Happy New Year, everybody, and happy listening!
Ring in the season with One True Podcast! Hemingway Review editor Suzanne del Gizzo joins us on our holiday show for the second year in a row. For this episode, we discuss Hemingway’s charming 1923 article for the Toronto Daily Star, “Christmas on the Roof of the World,” his chronicle of a skiing idyll in the Swiss Alps with his wife Hadley and “Chink” Dorman-Smith.
We discuss the article’s fascinating prose style, its uncharacteristic tone, and the placement of this obscure piece in Hemingway’s career. Our conversation also considers Hemingway’s biography in the winter of 1922-23, the setting of this skiing getaway.
As a bonus, del Gizzo offers up her “one true sentence” from “"Big Two-Hearted River" to round out the episode. Also, enjoy a musical performance by University of Evansville students Kate Maue, Alyssa DeCorrevont, and Rachel Taylor.
Happy Holidays from One True Podcast!
Sherman Alexie, the award-winning writer, poet, and filmmaker whose works include The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Reservation Blues,joins us to talk about his one true Hemingway sentence from "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber."
Stop by Henry’s lunch-room as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the adaptation of The Killers with legendary film historian James Naremore.
We discuss the legacy of the film, the difficulty of adapting Hemingway’s writing, what makes this movie a noir classic, the performances of megastars Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, and so much more.
Hemingway once said that he enjoyed watching the movie “when I want to see Miss Gardner and hear the shooting.” He also called it “the only good picture ever made of a story of mine.” So, pull up a chair and join us for the big dinner!
This episode was recorded on April 2, 2021.
Debra Moddelmog shares her one true sentence from Hemingway's short story "The Sea Change."
Join us as we welcome Janet Somerville, author of Yours, for Probably Always,for a fascinating discussion about Martha Gellhorn.
Gellhorn is most often remembered and depicted as Ernest Hemingway's third wife, but she was also a novelist, war correspondent, activist, and iconoclast. Somerville guides us through the life of this trailblazer: her childhood in St. Louis, a close relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt, that notorious first encounter with Hemingway in a Key West bar, her tumultuous life during and after her marriage to Hemingway, and her formidable writing career.
Listen for clips from the audio book of Yours, for Probably Always, with readings performed by Emmy and Tony-winning actress Ellen Barkin.
So pull up a chair at Sloppy Joe's and enjoy the show!
In this episode, we celebrate the Fall Classic with a show devoted to Hemingway and baseball.
First, we welcome scholar Sharon Hamilton to discuss the 1919 Black Sox scandal, how it affected Hemingway, and the legacy that World Series and the trial had on society and sports.
We then have a conversation with David Martens and Joshua Robinson, who recall their experiences investigating Gigi’s All-Stars, the baseball team of Cuban youngsters that Hemingway formed to occupy his youngest son, Gregory. (We include a clip of the audio from one of the All-Stars, the legendary Cayuco "Jonronero"!)
And finally, we consider the role of Joe DiMaggio in The Old Man and the Sea with his biographer, Jerome Charyn. Why was Santiago drawn to the Yankee centerfielder, and why did DiMaggio become the perfect literary symbol for Hemingway?
Grab some peanuts and Cracker Jack and enjoy these four fascinating guests talkin’ baseball!
Russell Banks, author of Cloudsplitter and Foregone, shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's A Moveable Feast.
Jump on Interstate 70 with us as we take a trip between two great American cities planted on the outer edges of Missouri -- St. Louis and Kansas City -- in order to explore their connections to Hemingway.
In the first half of our discussion, we're joined by Andrew Theising, author of Hemingway's Saint Louis: How St. Louisans Shaped His Life and Legacy, to understand more about the city's history, its arts & culture, and a vast array of St. Louisans, including Hemingway's first three wives.
250 miles away, we pick up with the story of Kansas City. We welcome Steve Paul, whose book Hemingway at Eighteen: The Pivotal Year That Launched an American Legend becomes our road map to navigating the city, its history, and Hemingway's formative journalistic experience at The Kansas City Star.
Grab a coffee, maybe some barbecue, and join us!
In this episode, we welcome Nicholas Reynolds, author of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961, to discuss Hemingway's politics and involvement in espionage and intelligence.
Why was the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 Hemingway's political genesis point? How and why was he recruited by the Soviet NKVD? What was his involvement, beyond the role of war correspondent, during WWII? Reynolds, a former Marine colonel and intelligence officer who has served as the historian at the CIA Museum, explores these and other topics as we investigate Hemingway's preternatural intelligence-gathering ability, his growing paranoia during the later years, and the way his writing reflects his involvement in these "secret adventures."
For this fascinating discussion, we welcome the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian A. Scott Berg, author of Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, to discuss Perkins’s role in Hemingway’s life and career.
Berg talks about the research and writing of his biography, the difference between Perkins’s approach to editing and promoting Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and the editor's collaborations with other writers such as Thomas Wolfe, James Jones, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Berg also offers his “one true sentence” from all of Hemingway’s work.
We hope you enjoy this episode with one of America’s leading biographers!
We welcome Valerie Hemingway to share her memories of her father-in-law and the thrilling Spanish summer of 1959. We draw from her wonderful memoir Running with the Bulls to hear stories about Hemingway’s later years, his writing process, and the stark difference between the dangerous summer of 1959 and the grim crises of 1960.
Ms. Hemingway recollects her own Irish childhood and her development as a young journalist thrust into the exhilarating role as Hemingway’s secretary. She also looks back at her relationship with Papa, which was unlike any other in Hemingway’s life.
Join us for our conversation with this brilliant and charming raconteur about her crucial role in Hemingway's life and legacy.
Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog, Townie, and Gone So Long, talks about his one true Hemingway sentence from "Hills Like White Elephants."
One True Podcast takes a deep dive into Joan Miró’s masterpiece and Hemingway’s beloved possession, The Farm.
We welcome art historian Alex Fernandez de Castro and journalist Hugh Eakin to discuss the meaning, history, and legacy of this powerful and infinitely mysterious painting. In our two-part interview, we cover Miró’s evolution as an artist, his similarities and differences with Hemingway, and the crucial importance of this painting in his storied career.
We also learn the mythology of how Hemingway bought The Farm, and ultimately, how it has now come to be housed in Washington, DC, at the National Gallery.
Join us in our travels to Miró’s Farm!
Amanda Vaill takes us to the French Riviera of the 1920s, drawing from her definitive book, Everybody Was So Young, to describe who Gerald and Sara Murphy were and what they meant to the artists they knew.
Vaill discusses Fitzgerald’s poor behavior, Hemingway’s ambivalence to the rich, and Gerald’s own artistic efforts. Along the way, she suggests what gave the Murphys the enchanting quality that drew so many important figures into their circle.
This episode was recorded on May 17, 2021.
Hideo Yanagisawa shares his choice for Hemingway's one true sentence, which comes from a letter to Charles Scribner about The Old Man and the Sea.
We welcome aboard Paul Hendrickson for a discussion about his poignant book on Hemingway’s beloved Pilar, the best-selling Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost.
Hendrickson explores Pilar as a significant constant in Hemingway's life and as an illuminating metaphor for Hemingway's work. During the interview, he also talks about the fascinating process of writing this searching book, one that includes a twenty-year gestation period, a meeting with Hemingway’s brother, and a pep talk from a former One True Podcast guest.
This episode was recorded on March 26, 2021.
We welcome Mark Salter, who served as Senator John McCain's advisor and speechwriter, to discuss the senator's lifelong passion for the works of Ernest Hemingway. From his first encounter with For Whom the Bell Tolls to his final consideration of the elegiac “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Salter speaks movingly about Senator McCain's engagement with Hemingway’s writing and how it informed his ethics.
Along the way, Salter talks about the art of speechwriting, Senator McCain as a potential literature scholar, and the way For Whom the Bell Tolls’s Robert Jordan emerged as a fictional character that was completely alive for the senator. Join us for this fascinating conversation!
This episode was recorded on November 23, 2020.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout shares her one true sentence from Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."
We celebrate the new PBS documentary Hemingway by discussing this historic three-part series with its directors, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.
Our conversation covers Hemingway’s singular gifts as an artist, his burden of celebrity, his many complicated relationships, and the tragedy that coursed through his life. Burns and Novick describe the challenges of bringing such an outsized life to screen, from the gathering of rare footage to assembling the distinct voices that illuminate his life and work. They also explain the process of selection, as well as the things left out.
As a perfect companion to your viewing of Hemingway, join us for this revealing interview with its filmmakers.
This episode was recorded on February 8, 2021.
“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is one of Hemingway’s greatest stories and one of his most controversial. Is the shocking death at the end of the story accidental manslaughter or cold-blooded murder? How should we read the ambiguous title? And what does Hemingway’s investigation into the psyches of the various characters – including the lion’s – reveal about this narrative and Hemingway’s craft?
We are joined by the prominent Hemingway scholar Laura Godfrey to consider these questions and so much more. During our conversation, she discusses how issues of gender, race, class, and morality contribute to this story’s timelessness as well as how 21st-century tools in the digital humanities can help us analyze and teach it.
This episode was recorded on February 24, 2021.
In this episode, Boris Vejdovsky's true sentence from Hemingway's "Cat in the Rain" leads to an illuminating and wide-ranging conversation on narrative voice, American identity, and the bravery of simple language.
Ernest Hemingway never acknowledged the influence of any artist in any medium more generously than that of the French painter Paul Cézanne. From the 1920s, Hemingway’s character Nick Adams “wanted to write like Cézanne painted.” As an older writer, Hemingway visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art to gush about the painter's influence on his approach to writing.
One True Podcast turns to Carol Armstrong, professor of Art History at Yale and a leading Cézanne scholar, to help us understand how appreciating the artist's work can illuminate Hemingway’s approach to writing. Armstrong discusses Cézanne’s historical context, his modernist leanings, his interest in landscape and movement, and his own relationship with the written word. Join us to discover what Hemingway meant when he vowed to “do the country like Cézanne.”
This episode was recorded on June 15, 2020.
One True Podcast welcomes scholar Ross Tangedal for a spirited discussion about Hemingway’s 1923 publication, Three Stories & Ten Poems, including the incendiary early effort, “Up in Michigan.” Tangedal guides us through this slim volume as an underrated portrait of the artist as a young man.
What does this early fiction tell us about the young Hemingway? Are there signs of his later mastery? How should we value Hemingway as a poet?
Join us for a discussion about this seldom-addressed book in Hemingway studies. Also note the performance of selected Hemingway fiction and poetry by some of the University of Evansville’s talented Theatre students.
This episode was recorded on July 9, 2020.
Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife and Love and Ruin, talks about her one true Hemingway sentence.
One True Podcast continues its exploration of Hemingway on film by welcoming the legendary actor Adrian Sparks to discuss his iconic portrayal of Hemingway in Papa: Hemingway in Cuba. This film, released in 2015, made history as the first Hollywood production on the island since the trade embargo.
Sparks describes the magical experience of using Hemingway’s actual typewriter as they filmed on location inside the Finca Vigía, the challenges of portraying such a complex man in the final years of his life, and the special relationship between Hemingway and the Cuban people, which he encountered first-hand while starring as Papa.
Opening clip: Papa: Hemingway in Cuba trailer (Magenta Light Productions, Studio 2050, Sunstone Film Productions).
This episode was recorded on March 27, 2020.
Happy Holidays from One True Podcast!
Enjoy our first Holiday Spectacular as we ring in the season with Suzanne del Gizzo, scholar and editor of The Hemingway Review, to talk about Hemingway's decidedly un-festive short story, "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen."
What was Hemingway getting at with that title? Why would he write such a macabre story? How can that story speak to us at the holidays? We find out in this interview as del Gizzo explains the story, the classic carol, and Hemingway’s grand design. Plus, we've sent a Hemingway-appropriate Christmas gift to our guest!
A special thanks to the University of Evansville Choirs and Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Chun-Ming Chen.
This episode was recorded on November 2, 2020.
Join us for an all-new One True Podcast as we welcome Sandra Spanier and Miriam B. Mandel to discuss the fifth volume of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway. The newest installment covers 1932 to 1934, where Hemingway is finishing his bullfighting manifesto, Death in the Afternoon, preparing his idiosyncratic book of short stories, Winner Take Nothing, and readying his chronicle of the hunt, Green Hills of Africa.
Spanier and Mandel discuss Hemingway’s complicated personal life, his literary ambitions, his global travels, and his ever-changing network of friends and associates. Join us for a tour through Volume 5 of the Letters with its magnificent editors!
This episode was recorded on October 21, 2020.
One True Podcast welcomes Robert K. Elder, author of the entertaining and fascinating Hemingway in Comics. In this episode, we talk about how popular artists have depicted Hemingway across various cultures and the similarities that exist between the style of comics and the iceberg principle.
Elder examines how international artists have depicted, Disney-fied, satirized, and mythologized Hemingway in their representations of him as teenage soldier, Paris boozehound, and aging Cuban fisher. And, of course, Papa’s iconic image in that bulky turtleneck sweater makes an appearance.
This episode was recorded on September 18, 2020.
One True Podcast asks Verna Kale her choice for Hemingway’s “one true sentence.” Kale's sentence comes from the short story "Soldier's Home." Listen in!
One True Podcast was privileged to welcome Seán Hemingway – editor of the Hemingway Library Editions and the grandson of the writer – to discuss the new edition of The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway discusses the legacy of the novella, its composition, and the new material published in the book, including “Pursuit as Happiness,” a previously unpublished short story.
Seán Hemingway also reflects on his grandfather’s life and career, providing a special perspective on Hemingway and his greatness. Make sure you listen to the entire show, for a rare (but necessary) appearance by the producer, Michael Von Cannon.This episode was recorded on September 28, 2020.
One True Podcast welcomes award-winning director John Irvin to talk about his 2008 film adaptation of Hemingway's posthumous novel The Garden of Eden.
Irvin discusses the role Hemingway played in his own artistic development, the challenges of adapting Hemingway, and The Garden of Eden’s controversial subject matter. He recalls experiences directing Jack Huston, Mena Suvari, Richard E. Grant, and Matthew Modine as well as the importance of filming on location at the Tanzania-Kenya border. Irvin also comments on the frustrating post-production phase of the film and its uneven reception.
Opening clip: The Garden of Eden Trailer (Tranquil Seas, Devonshire Productions).
This episode was recorded on June 12, 2020.
One True Podcast welcomes Robert W. Trogdon to discuss his beautiful new publication, the Library of America edition of Hemingway’s early writing, from 1918-1926.
Trogdon discusses his role as a textual editor. He explains how he assembled Hemingway’s journalism and letters, and how his decision about punctuation in The Sun Also Rises will forever change how we read one of Hemingway’s most iconic sentences.
The episode was recorded on August 26, 2020.
One True Podcast understands that we all can’t get together at El Floridita and while away the afternoon telling stories and talking about Hemingway. However, we can serve up our first batch of Papa Dobles for our listeners, a doubleheader of episodes dealing with Hemingway, Cuba, and the valuable work of the Finca Vigía Foundation.
In this first episode, we welcome Bob Vila, the legendary home repair TV personality to discuss his role in restoring and preserving the Hemingway house and its contents, as well as his upbringing in Cuba and south Florida. We hope you’ll enjoy this special episode!
This episode was recorded on May 27, 2020.
One True Podcast understands that we all can’t get together at El Floridita and while away the afternoon telling stories and talking about Hemingway. However, we can serve up our first batch of Papa Dobles for our listeners, a doubleheader of episodes dealing with Hemingway, Cuba, and the valuable work of the Finca Vigía Foundation.
Earlier we met up with Bob Vila to talk about his preservation work (see that show in our line-up), whereas today we are joined by Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern, the most Hemingway-relevant member of the United States Congress. He discusses US-Cuba relations, the Finca Vigía Foundation, Castro, and the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.
Opening clip: Rep. McGovern's floor speech, from 29 April 2016, honoring the Finca Vigía Foundation and U.S.-Cuba collaboration (CSPAN).
This episode was recorded on July 23, 2020.
Join us as we talk with esteemed scholar Joe Flora about "The Battler," Hemingway's classic Nick Adams story from In Our Time.
Flora, who is the author of the canonical Hemingway's Nick Adams and Ernest Hemingway: A Study of the Short Fiction and Past-President of the Hemingway Society, takes us into the Michigan woods to explore this compelling story about young Nick's encounter with a former prizefighter and his companion. Along the way, we discuss Hemingway's craft, his treatment of race, boxing culture, mental illness, and the coronavirus pandemic.
This episode was recorded on March 25, 2020.
In Green Hills of Africa, the 1935 account of his safari, Hemingway made his most enduring statement of literary criticism. He wrote that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. [. . .] There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."
What does that mean? Is he right? Was there a strategy behind what seems to be a high compliment?
One True Podcast welcomes Susan K. Harris to tackle this iconic quote and to gain a better sense of Hemingway's relationship to Twain and how they compare as craftsmen. En route, we take up other significant questions, like how to make sense of the final part of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn--which Hemingway called "cheating"--and how to better understand the very notion of influence between artists.
This episode was recorded on April 15, 2020.
In an episode that is unfortunately too timely, One True Podcast welcomes Elizabeth Outka to discuss the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, writers' responses to it, and the way it compares to our current experience with COVID-19.
Dr. Outka discusses Hemingway’s engagement with the so-called “Spanish influenza” (in works like "A Natural History of the Dead") as well as modernism’s broader depiction of the worldwide devastation that ensued. The interview touches on Katherine Anne Porter, T.S. Eliot, Willa Cather, and others. As she does in her book Viral Modernism, Outka offers an insightful perspective that combines literary and historical analysis with scientific knowledge.
The episode was recorded on May 20, 2020.
One True Podcast is pleased to go down to the river with James Plath, Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University, to discuss one of Hemingway’s early masterpieces.
Plath discusses the many dimensions that contribute to the enduring appeal of "Big Two-Hearted River" by responding to such question as: Who is Nick Adams? What is the importance of the northern Michigan setting? How does the presence and absence of the war function in the story? And, how does the story illustrate the “Hemingway style” that made him famous. In this wide-ranging interview, Plath also makes important connections to visual artists such as Cézanne.
This episode was recorded on February 19, 2020.
On this episode, we welcome to the show Jerry Fielder and Anne E. Havinga to discuss Yousuf Karsh's portrait of Hemingway, which is without a doubt the most iconic image of the writer.
Who was Karsh? What was the meeting like between him and Hemingway? Why does this photo, among all those taken of Hemingway (including the others Karsh took), hold such an important place? Our two guests are especially suited to respond to these and other questions.
Fielder joins us as the Director of the Estate of Yousuf Karsh, and Havinga holds the Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Chair of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts. In fact, over the course of the interview we also get the opportunity to hear Estrellita's reflections on her husband's session with Hemingway.
This episode was recorded on April 24, 2020.
On this episode of One True Podcast, we are joined by Dr. Andrew Farah, author of Hemingway’s Brain, who argues that Hemingway was misdiagnosed and suffered from dementia in his later years.
With a perspective and base of knowledge no other commentator has ever offered, Dr. Farah chronicles Hemingway’s lifetime of mental illness, addiction, and accidents, identifying how a 21st-century doctor would have had the technology and the medicine to rehabilitate Hemingway.
This episode was recorded on February 3, 2020.
Lesley Blume joins One True Podcast to discuss Everybody Behaves Badly, her bestselling profile of the background of The Sun Also Rises.
Blume talks about Paris and Pamplona in the 1920s, the actual people who inspired Hemingway’s unforgettable characters, and the impact the novel has had on literature and culture for almost a century. Join us for a lively conversation with the award-winning journalist and enjoy our re-examination of Hemingway’s masterpiece!
This episode was recorded on March 2, 2020.
One True Podcast continues its exploration of the places that defined Hemingway and that Hemingway helped define. We return to Cuba, joined by Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the man President Obama nominated to serve as ambassador to Cuba.
During the discussion, Ambassador DeLaurentis draws from his personal experiences with the Cuban government and Cuban citizens, as well as his decades of international experience, in order to provide a rich analysis of the state of this complex international relationship.
This episode was recorded on July 29, 2019.
On this episode we welcome Scott Donaldson, the legendary Hemingway biographer, to discuss the iceberg principle of writing. He explores the function of Hemingway’s iceberg style, examines various examples of it at work, and considers potential influences on Hemingway's "trademark" style of omission.
As a literary biographer and one of the most perceptive and prolific living scholars of American literature, Donaldson illuminates Hemingway and his artistic technique.
This episode was recorded on July 28, 2019.
In this episode, the brilliant historian Mark Thompson, author of the magisterial The White War, separates fact from fiction as he analyzes Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, including its epic depiction of the devastating Caporetto retreat.
In writing his great war novel, Hemingway dramatically recreated the Italian Front of World War I by consulting histories, maps, novels, and others’ firsthand accounts. He also drew from his own traumatic experiences in northern Italy in 1918.
Thompson turns his attention to the historical context of the fiction, focusing on the “forgotten front” of Italy during World War I. He addresses the military fiascoes and political incompetence, bringing to the surface the subtext of A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway’s timeless classic.
This episode was recorded on September 6, 2019.
One True Podcast took the occasion of Toni Morrison’s death to consider the way race emerges as a key factor in Hemingway’s writing. In this episode, we turn to one of the most prominent Hemingway scholars on this issue, North Carolina State’s Marc Dudley.
During the interview, Dudley reflects on Morrison’s searing criticisms of Hemingway’s treatment of minority characters, and extends his thoughts to consider how other ethnicities – such as Native Americans – function in Hemingway’s work. Hemingway emerges both as a writer of his time, with all of its limitations and prejudices, and also as a man of sensitivity and deep insight. Our conversation on Hemingway and race is a timely one, asking the question: how do Hemingway’s depictions of race look through twenty-first-century eyes?
This episode was recorded on October 18, 2019.
In this episode, the inimitable Susan Beegel joins producer Michael Von Cannon for a special "Scholar's Spotlight" episode.
Beegel tells Michael about her article "Fish Tale: A History of the L.C. Bates Museum Marlin, Taxidermist Fred C.N. Parke, and Ernest Hemingway," which appeared in the Fall 2018 issue of the Hemingway Review. Listen in as she unlocks the mysteries surrounding a taxidermied Hemingway marlin that she came across in a museum in Hinckley, Maine.
As Beegel explores the intertwined story of Hemingway and Parke, she dives into the culture of deep-sea fishing along the Florida Keys, the importance of Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad, and the conflicted relationship Hemingway had with the upper crust. In doing so, she follows the trail of Hemingway's artistic growth and literary celebrity. The marlin becomes a symbol of what the writer lost, what he never possessed, and what he finally determined to hook and land.
This episode was recorded on February 22, 2019.
Stacy Keach joins the show to reflect on his legendary career, particularly his portrayal of Hemingway on the stage, in the classic miniseries, and in his audio recording of short stories.
Keach compares the art of acting to the act of writing and gets to the heart of Hemingway’s knack for conveying emotion in spare prose. He reflects on the many adaptations of Hemingway novels and his friendship with George C. Scott and John Huston. He also offers insights into Hemingway’s psychology and destructive habits.
As a special bonus, hear Keach's brilliant read of our “one true sentence” introduction!
This episode was recorded on August 8, 2019.
Alex Vernon joins the show to discuss one of Hemingway’s major themes: men at war. He penetrates the myth of Hemingway-as-warmonger, isolates some of the writer's most evocative war passages, and even reflects on his own war experiences in the Middle East.
Vernon also tracks Hemingway’s development from the young eyewitness of World War I to the keen partisan of the Spanish Civil War, and finally to the solemn commentator of WWII journalism. In pursuit of Hemingway’s place in the canon of war literature, this episode incorporates a lively discussion of Crane, O’Brien, Stendhal, and even the Kardashians.
This episode was recorded on June 27, 2019.
This episode is a journey into the culture and history of Cuba. Given the undeniable importance of Cuba in Hemingway’s life and legacy, Hemingway readers will learn a lot more about it from one of the preeminent scholars, thinkers, and writers on Cuba, Dr. Julia E. Sweig.
Dr. Sweig discusses US-Cuba relations, their tumultuous history, her meetings with Fidel Castro, and her sense of what we might expect--and hope for--in the coming years. The interview touches on issues of immigration, terrorism, and contemporary politics as we explore the past, present, and future of our Cuban neighbors.
This episode was recorded on May 23, 2019.
In this episode, we explore Hemingway and John Dos Passos, their service in the American Red Cross during World War I, their writing careers, and their doomed friendship.
In order to do so, we chat with the man who wrote the book on it. James McGrath Morris’s The Ambulance Drivers chronicles the highs and lows of their relationship and their legacies. As well, Morris talks about the mystery surrounding the identity of the Italian soldier who saved the young Hemingway’s life.
This episode was recorded on June 12, 2019.
Today's show places Ernest Hemingway alongside one of his artistic contemporaries: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Part friendship and part rivalry, their complex relationship has all the twists and turns of a good novel about two characters that, at least on the surface, seem vastly different.
There's some truth to these differences but, like a good story, there's a fair share of fiction. We sit down with Kirk Curnutt to set the record straight. During the episode, we draw the distinction between myth and reality to learn more about their lives, their art, and their relationship.
This episode was recorded on May 30, 2019.