One True Podcast

‘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 takes 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. If you're interested in listening to our other episodes on The Garden of Eden, check out our interview with Tom Jenks on his trade edition of the book.

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.