One True Podcast

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.

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 asks Craig McDonald his choice for Hemingway’s “one true sentence.”

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.

One True Podcast asks Carl P. Eby his choice for Hemingway’s “one true sentence.”

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.