One True Sentence #39 with Michael Deagler

One True Podcast would never let 2025 end without one more episode celebrating the centenary of In Our Time, so today we discuss a classic short story from that collection: “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife.”Scholar (and podcaster) Scott Yarbrough visits us from Charleston to lead us through the many elements of this great story: Dr. Adams’s quarrel with Dick Boulton, the doctor’s icy relationship with his wife, and finally his moment of connection with his son. Along the way, we touch on the ethics of log stealing, the implications of Christian Scientism, Hemingway’s captivating early prose style, Nick’s role in the narrative, and whether or not this story qualifies as one of Hemingway’s “greatest hits.”Join us for a trip into the Michigan woods and a guided tour through “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife.” We know where there’s black squirrels!

The prominent Faulkner scholar Ahmed Honeini first joined us in 2024 to discuss the rivalry and intertextuality between Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.Clearly, in a topic so vast, devoted to the two leading titans of 20th-century American literature, one puny, inexhaustible episode was not enough. So, Ahmed Honeini agreed to come back onto One True Podcast to continue our pursuit of Hemingway and his contemporaries. We discuss Faulkner’s great works, how his concept of mortality compares with Hemingway’s, the inadequacy of language, Hemingway’s iceberg theory, and Ahmed’s favorite moment in all of Faulkner.Join us for this wonderful conversation with the Founder of the Faulkner Studies in the UK Research Network! 

The Great Gatsby celebrates its 100th birthday this year, and you knew that One True Podcast couldn’t let 2025 go by without joining the celebration. We mark the centenary of this great American novel by marking its importance in American literary history as well as the life and career of Ernest Hemingway.Fitzgerald scholar William Blazek visits us from his post at Liverpool Hope University to discuss the novel’s legacy, its glorious language, and its ambiguous themes; Gatsby as a complex and misunderstood character; how Gatsby would have struck the young Hemingway; and so many other aspects of this magnificent work.Like Nick Carraway just remembering he is turning thirty, One True Podcast hopes it isn’t too late to join the roaring celebration of Gatsby at 100!Thanks as always for supporting One True Podcast!

Michael Deagler, the 2025 PEN/Hemingway winner for Early Sobrieties, shares his one true sentence from To Have and Have Not.Join us for our favorite Hemingway parlor game as this excellent novelist chooses his favorite sentence from everything Hemingway ever wrote. We discuss writing about addiction and recovery, Hemingway’s use of dialogue, the way The Sun Also Rises serves as a textbook guide for writing novels, and much more.Don’t forget to submit your nomination for One True Book Club 2026! Submit your choice for a book that is not by Hemingway but is Hemingway-relevant to [email protected] you for your continued support of One True Podcast!

One True Podcast looks ahead to the last volume of Hemingway’s letters! Although Hemingway’s correspondence from 1957-1961 won’t be officially published for another couple of decades, the co-editors of the last volume of the Hemingway letters – J. Gerald Kennedy and Michael Von Cannon – along with their advisory editor, Valerie Hemingway, share insights about their work that covers Hemingway’s final days.We learn what was occupying Hemingway’s mind, his most frequent correspondents, the writing that consumed him, and how this last volume might reveal some of the health and psychological issues that plagued his later years. Join these three co-editors for an exclusive conversation on the volume we will eventually read, and their candid impressions of Hemingway’s last letters.

One True Podcast examines the most important male friendship of the last fifteen years of Hemingway’s life, his extraordinary relationship with Major General “Buck” Lanham, whom he met when he was an embedded journalist with the 22nd Infantry Regiment during World War II. Greer Rising – Buck was his father’s godfather – and Eileen Martin join us to talk about Buck’s background, his military history, his literary aspirations, and of course his intimate relationship with Hemingway. They discuss the Hemingway-Lanham interactions, encounters, and correspondence to demonstrate the intensity of the relationship and just how consequential it was.Join us as we learn more about the inspiration behind Colonel Cantwell in Across the River and into the Trees, the man whom Hemingway called “the finest and bravest and most intelligent and able regimental commander I have ever known.”Thank you for supporting One True Podcast! 

One True Podcast explores one of the most influential friends in Hemingway’s life: Eric “Chink” Dorman-Smith. Although Chink has been mentioned several times during past episodes, we finally devote an entire episode to this fascinating figure and his profound influence on Hemingway. For this discussion, we welcome Lavinia Greacen, the author of Chink: A Biography and, most recently, Military Maverick: Selected Letters and War Writing of “Chink” Dorman-Smith. We discuss Chink’s Irish background, his formidable military career, how he became Ernest and Hadley’s vacation companion, how his voice appears in Hemingway’s early war sketches, how he inspired the late novel Across the River and into the Trees, and much more. As a special gift to our listeners, we end the episode with some rare archival audio of Chink Dorman-Smith himself. We bet you will never read Chapter III of In Our Time the same way ever again.

At One True Podcast we were sad to hear of the death of Patrick Hemingway, the middle son of Ernest, who died on September 2, 2025. Patrick Hemingway (1928-2025) lived a life that was truly Hemingwayesque: traveling like his father, living much of his life in Africa, hunting and fishing, and determined to maintain the legacy of his father’s literary work. We invited Sandra Spanier, General Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project, to share her memories of Patrick, including his contributions to the Letters Project, her visits with him, and a poignant interview with Patrick that was conducted just a few months ago. Our episode closes with a soundbite from that June 2025 interview.We hope you enjoy this immediate reaction to the sad news of Patrick’s passing.

One True Podcast continues our celebration of the centenary of Hemingway’s In Our Time by examining a classic Nick Adams story: "The End of Something."We welcome Lisa Tyler to discuss the story, its setting, cast of characters, and curiously inexact title. We examine how the story serves as a prequel to "The Three-Day Blow," (while also pointing out many differences between the two texts), discuss the emotional and psychological damage suggested by Nick's line "everything was gone to hell inside of me," and figure out Bill's role in this break-up tale. Lisa Tyler, esteemed Hemingway scholar and editor of Wharton Hemingway, and the Advent of Modernism, makes the convincing claim that Marjorie emerges from this story as one of the most remarkable female characters in Hemingway’s entire canon.Join us for this discussion of a Hemingway classic! 

One True Podcast concludes its One True Book Club for the year with its third of three installments on W.H. Hudson’s 1885 novel, The Purple Land.This final episode covers chapter 21 to the end. We examine how Hudson resolves the domestic plot, the travel plot, and the confrontation with the diabolical Don Hilario. We debate whether The Purple Land’s climax is or is not even climactic.Then, we call in scholar Ilan Stavans, former OTP guest and editor of the U of Wisconsin Press edition of The Purple Land. Stavans ties up some of our loose ends and provides a broader historical and aesthetic context for Hudson’s project.We hope you’ll enjoy this third episode on this fascinating and problematic novel. If you have a nomination for our 2026 One True Book Club selection (it must be Hemingway-relevant, but not by Hemingway), please email us at [email protected] you as always for your support of One True Podcast!