Click here for a photo of Will Blythe (and his dog, Sheba).

To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever:
Author Will Blythe Shares His 'Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting,
and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry'
On UNC-TV's North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, July 7th, at 9:30 PM

The basketball rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is the fiercest blood feud in college athletics. To legions of otherwise reasonable adults, it is a conflict that surpasses sports; it is locals against outsiders, elitists against populists, even good against evil. It is thousands of grown men and women with jobs and families screaming themselves hoarse at eighteen-year-old basketball geniuses, trading conspiracy theories in online chat rooms, and weeping like babies when their teams-when they-lose. In North Carolina, where both schools are located, the rivalry may be 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 necessity of hatred.

What makes people invest their identities in what is elsewhere seen as "just a game"? What made North Carolina senator John Edwards risk alienating voters by telling a reporter, "I hate Duke basketball"? What makes people care so much?  In the season premiere of UNC-TV's local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch, airing Friday, July 7, at 9:30 PM, author William Blythe uses his new book To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever and his knowledge of Southern culture to answer these questions and more.

In his new book with the lengthy 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), Blythe expands on the history of this epic grudge through an examination of family, loyalty, privilege, and truly Southern manners and explains how basketball, for many Tar Heels, is a deeply religious experience.

"North Carolinians in a modern Presbyterian culture don't necessarily get the chance to indulge or express vehement passion in church, but basketball in this state has been an outlet for vehement expression of intense feelings," says Blythe. "So, I think in some ways ACC basketball fandom is a pressure valve for powerful emotions that don't otherwise have a place to express themselves."

Blythe, a lifelong Tar Heel fan, immerses himself in the lives of both 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 Blythe's access to the coaches, the stars, and the bit players, the Chapel Hill native shares how his latest work is both a chronicle of his own personal obsession and a picaresque record of important part of social history.

"The message from the book could be that hate springs eternal," says Blythe. "But the book is more an act of love, for the rivalry itself, the satisfaction that it gives people on both sides, and an act of devotion for the state, family and what it actually means to me."

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.

Don't miss DG Martin's all-new interview with Will Blythe on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, July 7, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airingSunday, July 9, at 5 PM,only on UNC-TV!

During this season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests will also include: John Hart (The King of Lies, July 14), Sarah Dessen (Just Listen, July 21), Kristin Henderson (While They're at War, July 28), David Payne (Back to Wando Passo, August 4), John Hope Franklin (Mirror to America, August 11), Leah Stewart (The Myth of You and Me, August 18), Andrew Britton (The American, August 25), Allan Gurganus (New Stories from the South, Sept. 1), Tom Carlson (Hatteras Blues, Sept. 8), Bill Smith (Seasoned in the South, Sept. 15), William Leuchtenburg (The White House Looks South, Sept. 22), Dot Jackson (Refuge, Sept. 29), Art Chansky (Blue Blood, Oct. 6), Mark Ethridge (Grievances, Oct. 13),  Paul Leonard (Music of a Thousand Hammers, Oct. 20), and Angela Davis-Gardner (Plum Wine, October 27).

For more information about additional series guests and airdates, plus, the all-new Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh's independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV's ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV's other local productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.

-UNC-TV-