One True Podcast

In this episode, we welcome Lesley Blume back to One True Podcast to mark the 10th anniversary of her acclaimed narrative nonfiction book Everybody Behaves Badly, which chronicles the real-life story behind Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.
The conversation spans Blume's research process, Hemingway's charisma, the role of F. Scott Fitzgerald in brokering Hemingway's career, the mythological dimensions of Lady Brett Ashley, and the iconic photo on the cover of Blume's book. Throughout this wide-ranging conversation, we also discuss A Moveable Feast, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, and Blume's forthcoming book A Devil's Bargain, which examines the Manson murders. 
As with the rest of our episodes on The Sun Also Rises, we have supplemented our conversation with an excerpt from the audio book of The Sun Also Rises, performed by William Hurt. Thanks to Simon and Schuster for their partnership.
Thank you for listening to One True Podcast! Consider donating to the Hemingway Society, including to the recently created One True Podcast Fund or the Hemingway Café Club!

Welcome to another installment of One True Podcast! A wonderful scholar, raconteur, and true devotee to the ritual of bullfighting, Larry Belcher guides us through the ways Hemingway presents bullfighting in The Sun Also Rises. We explore what bullfighting meant to Hemingway, to Jake Barnes, and its function in the novel. Larry provides historical and cultural context to this controversial and foreign aspect of The Sun Also Rises.
Join us as we learn from Larry’s years of bullfighting fandom, his decades of living in Spain, running with the bulls, and working with Hemingway’s great masterpiece. Nobody ever lives their life all the way up, except for Larry Belcher.  
This episode is the sixth episode One True Podcast has dedicated to the centenary of The Sun  Also Rises this year. As with the rest of the episodes, we have supplemented our conversation with Larry Belcher with an excerpt from chapter 18 of the audio book of The Sun Also Rises, performed by William Hurt. Thanks to Simon and Schuster for their partnership.
So go grab your leather wine-bottles and enjoy the episode!

Virginia Evans, the 2026 PEN/Hemingway Award winner for her novel The Correspondent, joins us to discuss her one true sentence from Hemingway: “You must be prepared to work always without applause." 
In this episode, Evans reflects on learning to value the work itself before and after publication, especially following the unexpected success of her novel. She discusses writing intuitively, the challenges of shifting between multiple letter-writers’ voices, and braiding many plot strands tightly back to Sybil at the story’s center. In addition, Evans recounts winning the PEN/Hemingway Award and her plan to read all of Hemingway in her fortieth year.
Thank you for listening to One True Podcast! Consider donating to the Hemingway Society, including to the recently created One True Podcast Fund or the Hemingway Café Club!
Previous "one true sentences" are collected in: One True Sentence: Writers and Readers on Hemingway’s Art, available here.

Join us for the final installment of One True Book Club ’26! In this series of episodes, we are reading the Hemingway-relevant selection, Under Fire by Henri Barbusse, the classic French WWI novel published in 1916.
This episode covers the final chapters of the novel. We discuss how Barbusse balances graphic, grotesque depictions of the dead with artistic restraint; we analyze anti-war themes throughout this section, including Corporal Bertrand's powerful speech; and we reflect on the "ray of light" symbolism at the end of the book.
Throughout the discussion, we connect our reading to other works by Hemingway: “Chapter X” of In Our Time [They whack-whacked the horse…], A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Men at War, “A Natural History of the Dead," and “Soldier’s Home.” We also draw connections to other non-Hemingway works, among them J’accuse (dir. Abel Gance), Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, Bob Dylan's “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, and Saving Private Ryan (dir. Steven Spielberg).
We are using the Penguin Classics edition with an Introduction written by Professor Jay Winter. In the second half of this episode, Winter kindly sits down with us to share his wisdom about this spectacular book!
Thank you for listening to One True Podcast! Consider donating to the Hemingway Society, including to the recently created One True Podcast Fund or the Hemingway Café Club!

Welcome back to the fortieth edition of our favorite literary parlor game as our guests choose their favorite sentence from everything Hemingway ever wrote in prose, poetry, correspondence, or journalism. 
In this episode, David Morrell, prolific author and creator of the iconic John Rambo character, offers his one true sentence from “In Another Country.” 
Morrell – author of First Blood, The Brotherhood of the Rose, and The Successful Novelist, among many others – joins us to discuss his life in writing and reading. We discuss the importance of first sentences, Hemingway’s grammar, Morrell’s friendship with the legendary Hemingway scholar Philip Young, good writing as hypnotic, the creation of Rambo as a character, John Barth, Carl Jung, and much more!
Thank you for listening to One True Podcast! Consider donating to the Hemingway Society, including to the recently created One True Podcast Fund or the Hemingway Café Club!
Previous "one true sentences" are collected in: One True Sentence: Writers and Readers on Hemingway’s Art, available here.