The Joy of Hate

Ezra Klein:

In 2006, Will Blythe published a book with a title I have never forgotten. It was called To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever. How can you walk by a book with those words slashed across the cover? What could it be about?

When I picked it up, I was surprised to see that it was an exploration of the rivalry between the Duke and University of North Carolina basketball teams and the way that rivalry had given shape and meaning to the author’s life in moments when little else did. “The living and dying through one’s allegiance to either Duke or Carolina is no less real for being enacted through play and fandom,” Blythe writes.