One True Podcast

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. 

Michael Thurston, editor of the new Norton Critical Edition of The Sun Also Rises, guides us through Bill Gorton's friendship with Jake, explores the historical inspiration behind his character, and analyzes his role and allusions in the novel. Join the lively discussion of this hilarious character in Hemingway's early masterpiece.