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 (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

[Signature]Reviewed by Sara NelsonFor a reviewer who's not all that clear on the difference between basketball and basket weaving, this book is a revelation. Former Esquire editor Blythe's debut is an examination of the rivalry between the University of North Carolina and Duke University college teams; in it, he interviews and profiles players and coaches, and even gives play-by-plays of key games. And yet, it is not "just" a sports book. At heart it's a memoir. Like Pat Conroy's My Losing Season and even Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes, to which the author Anthony Wofford compares it, To Hate Like This is about family and passion and people and parents and aging and, oh, yeah, some sports, too.Blythe is a native North Carolinan whose UNC passion was bred in the bone; he and his siblings were raised to be genteel and polite about all things, except while watching basketball games, particularly against arch-rival Duke. After living in New York for many years, Blythe returns home as his father is dying and reflects on the passion that has shaped him and, he suggests, his region. Forget the Mason Dixon line, the real division in this border war is between Carolinians who support the Blue Devils and those who live for the Tarheels.Sports fans can expect to enjoy the accounts of particular pivotal games recounted here, but the real revelations for the relatively uninitiated are Blythe's portraits of his characters: the tough-guy coaches like Mike Krzyzewski and Dean Smith, one of whom nearly breaks down confessing that he's still in love with his ex-wife; the nurse tending Blythe's dying father; and, most of all, the father himself, the kind of personality you expect to meet in great southern novels from Harper Lee to Pat Conroy. To call To Hate Like This a sports book is to be only about one-third right. An elegy to place and time and generation, it is also a story of fathers and sons and an elegant testament to the way pastimes are far more than ways to pass the time. (Mar. 1)Sara Nelson is the editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly.
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Review

"A revelation.... an elegant testament to the way pastimes are far more than ways to pass the time." -- Publishers Weekly (signature review)

"Blythe seduces with his story of Southern identity...passed down from fathers to their roaming sons...raucous, tender, and fierce." -- Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of "Random Family"

"THLT makes the game of basketball fascinating even to the non-fan. This book is a slam-dunk." -- Dennis Johnson, author of "Jesus' Son"

"The best book on basketball I have ever read ... destined to become a classic of sports literature." -- Pat Conroy

"The kind of sportswriting that comes along so rarely you can count the classics on one hand ... read this book." -- Play (New York Times Magazine sports supplement)

Not since Exley’s "A Fan’s Notes" has anyone produced such a graceful and elegiac evocation of place, family, and sport. -- Anthony Swofford, author of "Jarhead"

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006074023X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060740238
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #360,844 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, informed, introspective, brilliant sports writing, March 11, 2006

By	Barry T. Campbell (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Some of the best American nonfiction writing is about sports, and some of the best American writers are sportswriters.

Even though he isn't, to the best of my knowledge, a sportswriter (strictly speaking) Will Blythe has written an absolutely brilliant book about one of the most storied and heated rivalries in college basketball: UNC vs. Duke.

He has all the qualifications one needs to opine authoritatively: he was born and raised in North Carolina, he went to school at UNC, and like most of us who did (I fit that profile myself), he's a rabid Carolina basketball fan.

And while this book will be of obvious and direct interest to anyone who has spent some time on Tobacco Road--it is as authentically North Carolinian as a plate of barbecue and a glass of sweet iced tea--*any* college basketball fan, or any sports fan, really, or even anyone who appreciates the fine art of the wry personal memoir, would find "To Hate Like This..." engaging and delightful reading.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best sports book about fans that I've ever read, March 7, 2006

By	Jon Kimball (Durham, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is not about Duke or North Carolina or even college basketball per se, it's about about real sports fans dealing with the trials and tribulations of obsessive love and hate for "their" teams and against their rivals. The author himself even admits that he too is not immune from this affliction as he tries to determine what is at the root of this phenomenon. It's a hilarious read, and is without a doubt like nothing I've ever read in the sports genre. This book has history, passion, love/hate, and lots of psychoanalysis. It should be required reading for all sociology majors, not to mention anyone who has ever considered themselves a fan of any sport or anything.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loving the hate, March 16, 2006

By	JWS "Tar Heel fanatic" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

The first chapter of this book is worth the entire price. Laugh out loud funny. And then Will Blythe digs into the paradoxes and subtleties of what hating Duke, er, Dook (yes, I'm a Carolina alum), really means to him, even after he gets to know the personalities he loves to hate. Where does he wind up? Well, I won't give it away but believe me, he doesn't lose any of his passion for the Tar Heels. This is a must read for any Carolina fan. Similarly obsessed Dook fans will appreciate it as well. And curious outsiders who want an insider's view of what it's like to live inside the crazed, obseesive heart of the ACC won't regret a page of this book. Great writing from a fan in search of himself and an understanding of his loyalty to a team, a school, a region and a way of life that his recently deceased father taught him to love.