One True Podcast

In our second episode devoted to the centenary of The Sun Also Rises, we turn our focus to the beloved Count Mippipopolous. 
He’s an epicurean and an entrepreneur; he’s battle-tested, arrow-wounded, champagne-enjoying, no-dancing, business-tripping, generous-tipping... and he’s always in love. We discuss his role in the novel, his relationship with Brett and Jake, Hemingway’s original plan for him in the manuscript, and how he emerges as such a resonant figure.
Make sure to listen for a snippet of Leonard Nimoy as the Count in the polarizing 1984 mini-series, where he says things that he doesn’t say in the novel. As always, we enjoy the legendary actor William Hurt reading a pivotal scene involving the Count, courtesy of our friends at Simon & Schuster Audio.
If you’re quite one of us, you will love this exploration of Hemingway’s great novel and this indelible, magnificently alive secondary character.
Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, read by William Hurt. Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

We are thrilled to welcome Susan Shillinglaw, the preeminent John Steinbeck scholar, to discuss one of Hemingway’s contemporaries and fellow Nobel laureates. 
Although Hemingway and Steinbeck are not discussed comparatively as frequently as some of his other fellow literary titans, Prof. Shillinglaw talks about Steinbeck’s life, career, and temperament in ways that will inspire us to remap the overlaps between these two men. We explore Steinbeck’s fondness for “The Butterfly and the Tank,” Hemingway and Steinbeck’s different paths during the 1930s, the way The Red Pony’s Jody Tiflin functions as a Nick Adams-like character, and much more. 
Make sure to tune in to the very end of the episode! In honor of Steinbeck, our friend Michael Kim Roos treats us to a version of Woody Guthrie’s “Tom Joad.” For more information about Mike’s music, see: https://mikeroos.com.

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. Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, read by William Hurt. Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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!