One True Podcast

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. 

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! 

William Blazek, a Fitzgerald scholar from Liverpool Hope University, delves into the influence of The Great Gatsby on American literature. He explores Gatsby's misunderstood character and its critique of excess, contrasting modern party themes with the novel's deeper messages. Blazek also discusses Fitzgerald's literary legacy, the changing interpretations of Gatsby in postwar America, and the unique dynamic between Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Their contrasting styles provide fascinating insights into American identity and optimism.

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!