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Comment by bee_rider | Hacker News Reader

Wow, that was quite a lot of cryptic build-up. It’s basically a story about conman/drug guy interwoven with biographical information and anecdotes about how this impacted his family.

“You can run,” I guess maybe in the context of “You can run but you can’t hide” is not really touched upon too much. I mean it doesn’t have a particular connection to this story, any more than any other story about a fugitive.

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Damn, I thought this was going to be a guide to getting into running for exercise. Yes, I know there are lots of those around, but if this one made the front page of HN then maybe it had something interesting about it, or it was particularly well written or something.

Or something about politics. Or schedulers.

Have you ever like, read books? Why on earth would you think the title of a piece needs to call to anything but a general emotion from the story?

> Wow, that was quite a lot of cryptic build-up.

Yes, they were building suspense and telling an interesting story. It's a long form article, not a 30-word tweet. Jesus.

I've seen this attitude on HN all the time - the concept of "a narrative hook" is apparently a foreign concept here

Clickbaiters abused the concept of a hook until the hook itself was seen as clickbaity.

Damn near a whole generation estranged from basic literary convention due to its horrendous abuse.

"Narrative hook" is more often than not a sign of a weak writer. The story could also have started with: "Before they learned that their father was a drug dealer, the following happened:"

It might be a nice truecrime story (I’m not sure actually, they aren’t my cup of tea). I read along figuring it’d have some HN-related twist eventually, but it didn’t. So I thought I’d provide a heads up.

Usually a book title is a little more descriptive. And there's a synopsis or some other blurb on the back of the cover, to try to make you care a bit more than three words on a link on the front page of Hacker News.

If you expect a book title to be descriptive, you will be very surprised to learn that Moby Dick is a story about a whale. Or the insatiable ego. Or something else.

Yeah — but includes a fun cameo from a famous 90s TV dad.

When I read your comment, I instantly knew which one.

Yup. A big yawn. It seems like it ought to deep and insightful, but is, as you say, "basically a story about conman/drug guy interwoven with biographical information and anecdotes about how this impacted his family". There's no connection between the two parts that goes deeper that "they knew each other once, but did they really know each other?". It'd be Hallmark, but the parents aren't sympathetic enough.

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