TO HATE LIKE THIS IS TO BE HAPPY FOREVER; A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry

Will Blythe

ISBN 10: 006074023X / ISBN 13: 9780060740238

Published by Harpercollins, New York, 2006

About this Item

Near Fine in a Near FIne dust jacket.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 368 pages.

Seller Inventory # 602034

Bibliographic Details

• Title: TO HATE LIKE THIS IS TO BE HAPPY FOREVER; A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry
• Publisher: Harpercollins, New York
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 006074023X
• ISBN 13: 9780060740238
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition; Third Printing.
• Seller catalogs:
  • Basketball
  • Sports

About this title

Synopsis

An obsessively personal history of the blood feud between North Carolina’s and Duke’s basketball teams and what that rivalry says about class and culture in the South

The basketball rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is the fiercest and longest-running blood feud in college athletics, and perhaps in all of sports. To legions of otherwise reasonable adults, it is a conflict that surpasses athletics; it is rich against poor, locals against outsiders, even good against evil. In North Carolina, where both schools reside, it is a way of aligning oneself with larger philosophic ideals—of choosing teams in life—a tradition of partisanship that reveals the pleasures and even the necessities of hatred.

As the season unfolds, Blythe, the former longtime literary editor of Esquire and a lifelong Tarheels fan, will immerse himself in the lives of the two teams, eavesdropping on practice sessions, hanging with players, observing the arcane rituals of fans, and struggling to establish some basic human kinship with Duke’s players and proponents. With access to the coaches, the stars, and the bit players, it is both a chronicle of personal obsession and a record of social history.

About the Author

Will Blythe is the former literary editor of Esquire. A frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, he has written for the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Elle, and the Oxford American, and is the editor of the acclaimed book Why I Write. His work has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Sportswriting. He grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and now lives in New York City.