ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 10, 1996 TAG: 9604110003
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MONTCLAIR, N.J.
SOURCE: LAURA LIPPMAN THE BALTIMORE SUN
Dan Hurley is in his study in his small house, his fingers flying across his computer keyboard, like a pianist warming up before a performance. It is 11 p.m. on a weekday night, and most of Montclair, including his wife and 5-month-old daughter, are in bed or heading there. But Hurley is just getting to work, waiting in the virtual wings of a virtual auditorium in America Online.
Across the nation, people are filing into the auditorium for this evening's performance - 45, 55, 80, 150.
It's showtime, folks. Hurley types and the words flash on computer screens from Maine to California: ``It's time for everybody to tell the Naked Truth with Dan Hurley, the 60-Second Novelist,'' he types.
It all began 14 years ago, when Hurley, then an editor in Chicago for several American Bar Association publications, had a wonderful idea for a Halloween costume.
He planned to dress like a cigarette girl, but wear a typewriter around his neck and a hat on the back of his head. He would circulate through the room, murmuring: ``Poems? Short Stories? Novellas?''
He never made the Halloween costume. But on a Saturday afternoon the following April, he set up on a corner with a 39-pound Royal typewriter and a sign, billing himself as the 60-Second Novelist. For $2, he interviewed customers, then wrote their life stories. The stories were short, of course, and shot through with Hurley's dry, gentle humor.
Karen, for example, was a Buffalo, N.Y., housewife in a bad marriage. Hurley, who has kept copies of every single one of his 17,000-plus novels, wrote: ``One night, she went out for the evening and discovered it was colder than she expected. So she went home to get a sweater, and when she walked into the kitchen, she discovered her husband wearing her best dress and high heels and makeup. And the thing she thought was, `Why did he have to pick my best dress?''
People loved it. Old women cried: ``I don't know what it is, but I have to have one.''
``I did it on weekends, made some money and thought, `This is pretty cool.' I went on the `Today' show, and I thought `This is very cool,'' he recalls, over dinner at a diner near his home.
``I started charging $5 and more people wanted it, because it cost more, so it was suddenly more valuable. I said I'm going to test doing it full-time for a week, see if I get bored. I loved it, and I made $1,000, which was more than I was making at the American Bar Association. So I quit my job.''
He soon headed for New York and within a week had been featured on three television shows. It was the mid-1980s, a time of lavish parties, and the 60-Second Novelist quickly got on the circuit, earning hundreds of dollars to do what he had started doing for $2 a pop.
He entertained at private parties, for people like Ralph Lauren and Katherine Graham. He did a bar mitzvah aboard the Queen Elizabeth II. At a corporate event for Women's Day magazine in a seaside amusement park, he dashed off a story for a dark-haired woman named Alice, predicting she would meet the love of her life near the ocean.
In that case, Hurley could have billed himself as the 60-Second Psychic. The two were married five years ago.
Eventually Hurley began to burn out. He asked himself: ``Do I want to be a 50-year-old bar mitzvah entertainer?''
Computer-indifferent, Hurley knew little about the booming on-line services, so when an old friend, Trevor Isles, called and asked if he wanted to take the 60-Second Novelist on-line, he had no idea where to begin.
Luckily, Isles had already written the proposal.
In December 1994, America Online invited individuals to create interactive areas and reap a percentage of the time billed to users. Of more than 3,000 proposals, fewer than 20 were accepted, among them the 60-Second Novelist.
``Everybody is interested in themselves,'' says Judy Tashbook, an AOL spokeswoman. ``His formula is really pretty brilliant.''
Hurley routinely draws 200 or even more for his performances - a tiny fraction of 4.5 million AOL's subscribers, but good numbers for an event without a superstar.
``It's a wonderful place to go and be able to express your feelings without fear,'' says Michael Silverman, a 45-year-old Glendale, Ariz., man. ``It's one of the best support groups I've come across.''
And, while the 60-Second Novelist has no shortage of the glib, smart-alecky and sometimes salacious posts that can dominate on-line communication, it also is a place where people have no fear of revealing themselves. Adultery, abuse, tragedy and pain are familiar topics here.
``If Hurley is no Hemingway, he's no Geraldo either,'' Wired magazine wrote in November. ``Perhaps his chosen profession is somewhat exploitative by nature, but at least he has a gentle touch, and, his fans insist, a poet's soul.''
The 60-Second Novelist started with two shows a week, ``Spoof on the News'' on Mondays, and ``Dan Solves it All'' on Thursdays. In March, AOL added ``Get Naked'' for Tuesday nights, encouraging people to tell all - not that they seemed to need any encouragement.
As the first show begins, Hurley types a message only his assistant can see, telling her he wants the following mix of guests: Sexy, Heavy-Serious and Profound-Inspiring. Then he takes on his two roles, the 60-Second Novelist and the On-line Host, a more cynical character.
The first ``Get Naked'' guest, a young man from Chicago, has taken the show's title literally. He admits to sunbathing nude. Hurley hurries him off the stage, with a slightly risque tale.
Another subject, RRed5, types: ``I killed someone.''
``This is just what I want,'' Hurley says. Slowly, surely, he pulls the story from the young man. A soldier, he killed someone in Somalia in 1993. ``I shot him with an M-16. Just a person in the wrong place at the wrong time.''
The numbers for the show, now near 300, actually dip during this confession. But Hurley doesn't rush RRed5. He takes his time, writing a bittersweet piece that encourages the ex-soldier to stop blaming himself for what happened.
Does Hurley ever worry that he's not qualified to handle such confidences? ``What qualifications does Ann Landers have? Experience. When I started out, over 12 years ago, I would have said no way. But after almost 18,000 of these, I think I can give good advice.''
``Get Naked'' ends with the confessions of a one-time prostitute, sexually abused as a child, now living with a former customer. The numbers start going up again. ``Sick audience,'' Hurley murmurs and begins to write ``The Circle Unbroken.''
The 60-Second Novelist is a misnomer, of course. Hurley takes several minutes to compose most of his pieces. And it's difficult, even by the most generous terms, to call the results novels, although they do have the classic themes: man against man, man against nature and, most often, man against himself.
Inevitably, people want to know if he plans to write ``real'' novels. And, sure, he has an idea for one. But there are thousands of real novelists and only one 60-Second Novelist. Copies of his work are piled in a towering stack in his study, yellow and pink and white and blue and aquamarine carbons, edging ever closer toward the ceiling and the 18,000 mark. Five more written tonight, five more lives touched, no end in sight.
LENGTH: Long : 132 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PATRICK SANDOR/The Baltimore Sun. Of Dan Hurley, Wiredby CNBmagazine wrote: ``Perhaps his chosen profession is somewhat
exploitative by nature, but at least he has a gentle touch, and, his
fans insist, a poet's soul.'' color. Type first letter of feature OR type help for list of commands FIND S-DB DB OPT SS WRD QUIT QUIT Save options? YES NO GROUP YOU'VE SELECTED: QUIT NO login: c