From 1976 to 1984, when I was 12 to 20 years old, I was a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). They were glory days of academic wonder, social bliss, and political awakening. They were magical years of intellectualism, introspection, activism, enlightenment, love, hope, innocence, discovery, maturity, passion, and politics.

I was a campus leader. I was also a closeted lesbian. I came out after graduation. But, I am proud to say that I was never a gaybasher. And, I caught a lot of hell from gaybashing peers for including openly gay students in every event I planned and every organization I controlled. Personally, I was a coward. But, professionally, I was never a sexual separatist or a social sellout.

Fifteen years later, from 1999 to 2001, I was out and proud as a graduate student. I often imagine what my life may have been like had I found the courage to be who I was born to be as an undergraduate. Now, thanks to author Rashid Darden, I no longer have to wonder.

Rashid Darden has penned a wonderful book entitled “Lazarus” that is so realistic it feels like a journey back to my college days at UIUC. It is filled with characters who are clones of the real people I knew and the braver gays that I so wanted to be in college.

Lazarus is a black gay male love story. It is about black rebels on a predominately white campus. It features realistic black gay students who are impressive and unforgettable. Imagine Larry Fishburne as a macho homosexual campus leader, rather than the gaybashing rebel he played in the film “School Daze”. Imagine Shaza on the classic TV show about black college life, “A Different World”, as the lover of a kindred Latino male campus poet. These are the gay men I knew and loved at UIUC, one of whom is now a semi-closeted real life TV and movie star.

There are no down low predators wounding female coeds in the pages of Lazarus. These are brothers who are deeply entrenched in campus life as leaders, frat brothers, and star poets. These are men who are discreet and brave. These are real “big men on campus” who just happen to be gay. Their journeys to coming out are fascinating reads. You must read this book today.

I never pledged a sorority. Hazing was real at UIUC and truly intolerable to me. I still view any torture as tradition merely as traditional torture...This book delves deeply into the rituals of hazing that are curious mysteries to anti-Greeks like myself. Often, Lazarus reads like spying into a sacred and secret Pan Hellenic domain. Darden’s expert storytelling and intimate detailing of Greek bonding rituals lend some sanity to the insanity of hazing.

During my radio shows, I have often told callers that: “I am not a tangerine, you may not accept me by sections. I am a package deal.” I admire how the characters in this book live by this same mantra. They are bold and defiant. They are brave and daring. Their lives and their courage are mesmerizing. I have actually lived on Darden’s fictional campus and I have seen and shared these lives he has penned!

This book took me down magical memory lanes of my alma mater. It helped me appreciate the choices of national campus Greeks that could never be my own. It made me wish, even more than I always have, that I had been brave enough to come out of my closet as an undergraduate.

Lazarus is written in a manner that makes it hypnotic. I rarely enjoy fiction. I read so much non-fiction that I just do not have the time to read other literary genres. I am glad that I made time for this classic love story. I suggest that you do the same immediately.

Author Rashid Darden is a beautiful and gifted black gay man. And, he has penned a beautiful black gay masterpiece. His riveting and romantic novel Lazarus is the first in a trilogy of exciting rebel tales. His next novel is entitled "Covenant". For more information on Darden’s upcoming masterpieces visit: www.oldgoldsoul.com

Read and experience Lazarus today!

“ ...frats are the most homoerotic, yet homophobic, institutions that there are.

I could not understand why my presence in his organization hurt him so much...My credentials from the very beginning were on point.

Though we had found strength as the outsiders, me the gay man, he the foreigner, it would take time before we truly felt like members of the chapter... Frats and sororities divide this campus even more...

I’m definitely not going to pay to get my ass beat and then be called somebody’s sorror...

He lived an Afrocentric life and stayed away from all things material, including parties on campus.

International students aren’t into the frat thing too much

We’re pledging an organization that forbids hazing, yet we’re allowing it to happen to us.

They took his soul
and raped him
impregnating his thoughts
with illusions of family
when all he needed was here

Mohammed was Muslim. He was raised to believe homosexuality was an abomination. He came from a place where homosexuals were persecuted.

Why would he be at events where pledges would be at?...Why the fuc* would that faggot want to be around unless he was looking for one of you?

I need to know that what you feel for me doesn’t give a fuc* about Big Brother Steven or anybody else...”

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