🔗 Share this article Mangione: The Making and the Meaning by John H Richardson – Understanding a Criminal? On December 5, 2024, a leading publication published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article then noted that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight was truly chilling and disturbing. But many Americans reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. One comment stated: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who should live or perish. That’s the job of the AI algorithm the insurance company designed to maximize profits on your health.” Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on criminal counts of murder, with the district attorney seeking the capital punishment. So what is his background? And what might have motivated the accused offense? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that delves into wider topics, too. Understanding the Person A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the groups that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an end-times scenario”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their content covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own personal growth, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These primary sources, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. Richardson attempts to explain this by suggesting that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson attempts to cast his subject in archetypal terms. Mangione is profoundly worried about the world around him, one where ‘change is rapid whether we like it or not’ The Meaning Behind the Crime As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson takes as his lead three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “remove”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by medical insurers to reject claims. He looks at the evidence Mangione had a chronic back condition, which might have provided motive for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what significance there is seems to lie in Mangione’s philosophical dread about the world around him, one where “everything is accelerating whether we like it or not, sliding faster and faster to the edge”; a world where the consensus seems to be that AI is going to eventually either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both. Missing Pieces Notably missing from the book are conversations with the principal actors. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any significant information about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from the early 2020s, company earnings rose significantly. Unclear Conclusions By the conclusion, the audience has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him gives the reader the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the mad king, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that tale “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the population is in pain and nothing makes sense anymore.” One thing is clear: as Mangione’s legal representatives works to have charges that could lead to the death penalty dismissed, any mention of myths, Robin Hoods, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.