Dan Hurley has to be the world's most prolific author: he claims to have written approximately 17,000 novels. And how long did this paragon of penmanship take to compose his impressive oeuvre? Oh, about 17,000 minutes. Hard to believe, perhaps - but doubting Thomases can sign on to America Online, where Hurley creates his surreal stories in real time (keyword 60-second novelist).
Hurley, whose likeness to Pee-wee Herman is magnified by his longstanding infatuation with bow ties, calls himself a 60-second novelist. Until recently, he could be found on street corners in various cities, wearing a pork-pie hat and holding a manual typewriter in his lap. Amiably, he would strike up conversations with passersby. Then, for a fee of five dollars, the novelist would hurl himself into a typing frenzy, fingers flying all over the keys of his 1950s Royal. Triumphantly, he would hand over the piece of paper on which he had constructed a coherent and personalised miniature novel in about 60 seconds - though sometimes, when he allowed the muse to hurry instead of race, creation would take two or three minutes. "It's no good to rush it," Hurley insists. "I take pride in doing a good job. And why not? It's great work."
It has to be: Hurley gave up a steady job as an editor with the American Bar Association in 1984 to become the world's only 60-second novelist. In addition, he is now an executive vice president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and he writes stories for magazines such as Family Circle. Still, those jobs are no substitute for being a blitz book writer. "I like to interact with people," Hurley explains. "I don't want to be some oddball working in a closet." And there's the added benefit of knowing he's the best in his field - though that may have something to do with the lack of challengers. Hurley has written letters to Norman Mailer and John Irving, proposing a 60-second novel writing contest. The authors have politely declined.
Alas, when playing on the other guys' turf, Hurley has little reason to boast. All 168 manuscript pages of his only full-length novel remain, sadly, unpublished - despite the fact, he maintains, that he is "no slouch" as a writer. Most of his 17,000 customers agree. "A lot of people think what I do is nice and cute," Hurley says. "But more than half are somehow really moved. What more could a writer want?" On one memorable occasion, though, he was slapped in the face - by a Chicago woman who did not appreciate the poetic license Hurley took with the facts she'd volunteered. "I'm sur-prised I'm not punched in the mouth more often," says the writer, unperturbed.
It's true that his stories, frequently a combinationof fact and fiction, can be oddly touching and seemingly dead-on. Often, they're silly. Sometimes, flirtatious. "It's a ridiculously good way to meet girls," grins Hurley, who met his wife when she asked him to write a 60-second novel for her at a party. Indeed, his female clients seem to outnumber the male, at least in cyberspace - and that's where the Ray Kroc of literature has recently taken his business. America Online has created a special area for Hurley - officially launched in September - and the novelist may not be back on street corners any time soon. "It seems like the online medium was made for the kind of work I do," Hurley beams. Aside from writing high-speed novels, Hurley will also be running weekly writing contests and publishing daily columns online. "Most attempts at interactivity on the Net have been devoid of imagination," he says. "It's like, all of a sudden there's this wonderful violin, but everyone's tryi ng to play it like a ukulele."
The writer's cyberspace venture is part of The AOL Greenhouse, an attempt on the behemoth's part to make its service more entrepreneurial - and even more profitable. "We woke up to the fact that we had all these big-name media companies creating online content," says Danny Krifcher, vice president and general manager of the program. "What we needed was a space for passionate, creative individuals who simply had a great idea and some good business sense." After announcing the Greenhouse initiative in the fall of 1994, the company was flooded with almost 3,000 ideas. Less than 20 of those - including Hecklers Online, iGolf, NetNoir, The Motley Fool, and Surflink - have made it onto AOL's roster. Krifcher says that some of the new areas are among the top 20 most popular AOL hangouts. And Dan Hurley may become another rising star.
"Dan's concept is fresh and unique; he actually puts on an online show," Krifcher says. "We're betting a lot on him, believing he may be one of cyberspace's future 'rock stars' - one of the first people to develop a celebrity persona online. The pilots we've run have been very promising."
On one such pilot, the following exchange transpired. The online host-cum-sidekick is actually a Hurley alter ego, and a few facts have been changed to protect the promiscuous.
Hurley Dan: Why "Ms. Desire"? Are you the very incarnation of passion?... And lust?
MsDesire: Yes, I have been told.
Hurley Dan:By whom, if I may be so bold?
MsDesire: By friends and lovers.
Hurley Dan: How many lovers have there been?
MsDesire: 15 or so. I'm very open ... inside and out.
Hurley Dan: 15? Wow, that is a lot for a woman!
OnlineHost: Okay, Mr. Novelist, I think you need a cold shower.
MsDesire: That's from my youth also.
Hurley Dan: And why so many? Just all that desire, I suppose?
MsDesire: Well, I feel you can love more than one person in life.
Hurley Dan: So how many times have you been divorced?
MsDesire: 1
Hurley Dan: You HAVE been divorced? I was just guessing. And why did it go sour?
MsDesire: Married too young. He was faithful ... although I wasn't.
Hurley Dan: How young were you when you married? And how old are you now?
MsDesire: I was 19. Now I'm 35.
Hurley Dan: Wow, so YOU weren't faithful? Are you still that full of desire these days?
MsDesire: I have no problem with age. I don't look my age.
Hurley Dan: I bet you don't, beautiful. Are you steady with anyone now?
MsDesire: I'm married again. But he knows that I'm not faithful.
Hurley Dan: So you're STILL not? And he doesn't care?
MsDesire: He's all right with it, really. Strange, huh?
OnlineHost: Did you suck all the hormones out of him? Is he comatose? What's the deal?
MsDesire: LOL
Hurley Dan: Or is he just doing the same?
MsDesire: No, he has never cheated. I just need more, I guess.
Hurley Dan: Incredible. Well, now it is time....
OnlineHost: Yes, it is time for your story, MsDesire. By the way, what's your real name?
MsDesire: Sharon.
OnlineHost: Keep quiet now, while the great novelist writes your story.Hurley Dan: THE WOMAN WHO DESIRED IT ALL
Once upon a time a little tigress was released upon the world. A she-bear.... A woman for all ages. All ages of men, that is. She felt all the passion ... all the DESIRE ... all the WANT-ING. And she did not stop herself from indulging in what she wanted. And what she wanted was men.
Big men.
Small men.
Hairy men.
And baldies.
As a youngster, she thought she would settle down and be good. But it was futile. Because she wasn't being true to herself. And she asked herself, "Why should I limit myself to what SOCIETY wants me to do?" And so Sharon gave full vent to all her passions and desires. She went after men like Donald Trump went after money. She became the Walt Whitman of desire. And if every one of us could be so wise ... to accept who we are ... not battle ourselves to be like what we THINK we should be ... there just might be a lot more sex going on in this fine world of ours.
THE ENDMsDesire: Dan, I love you.
OnlineHost: Dan loves you too, Sharon. More than you or his wife will ever know. On one level, the confessional nature of many of Hurley's online talks resembles daytime TV's sordid talk shows. There's the woman who explains that she was married and divorced five times before she turned 30. Another respondent reveals her marriage hit rock bottom when she found out her hubby was a "mama's boy" who happily engaged in forgery, drugs, and theft.Also memorable was the woman who said that she was contacted by a half brother she never knew she had and that they ended up sleeping together. Her account inspired Hurley to churn out one of his shortest pieces of writing to date.
THEY DON'T MAKE GREEK TRAGEDIES LIKE THEY USED TO Once upon a time, in the good old days.... If you slept with someone in your family, it was just plain wrong. If Mom slept with Son, they both ended up going crazy and killing themselves. Well, those days are long past. Today, in modern America, tragedies are hard to come by. Somewhere else, in another time, and another place, there may be tragedies. But here in the sparkling clean malls of America, there are only satisfied consumers.
If Hurley is no Proust, he's no sleazeball either. Perhaps his chosen profession is somewhat exploitative, but he does have a gentle touch, and, fans insist, a poet's soul.
"He got inside my head in minutes," says AOL's general manager of entertainment, John Colston, of the minute-novel Hurley wrote for him at a sales pitch. "It never felt intrusive. Dan's too congenial for that."
Hurley's goal online is the same as it was in his typewriter days: to make a buck (AOL gives him about 25 per cent of the proceeds) and to "revive the moribund and calcified state of modern literature."
Rogier van Bakel (rogiernl@aol.com) is a writer living in Connecticut.