One True Podcast

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.