Luigi: The Making and the Meaning by John H Richardson – Sympathy for a Devil?

On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication published the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was truly cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. Social media blew up. One post read: “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 created to increase earnings on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on criminal counts of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too.

Understanding the Person

A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson spent years researching the communities that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, producing articles about people “cursed with realistic fears about an apocalyptic future”. To uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These primary sources, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson attempts to explain this by suggesting that “Luigi’s mystery, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in symbolic roles.

Mangione is deeply anxious 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 “depose”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms sometimes used by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He looks at the indication Mangione had a chronic back condition, which might have provided motive for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what meaning there is seems to lie in Mangione’s existential anxiety about the world around him, one where “the pace is quickening whether we like it or not, moving rapidly to the edge”; a world where the consensus seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are interviews with the principal actors. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had chosen not to talk to the media in advance of the trial. Another glaring gap is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits rose significantly.

Ambiguous Findings

By book’s end, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what could have driven his accused actions. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been exposed to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the emperor without clothes.” In that fable “outlaw heroes come with a appealing vow … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s defence team works to have accusations that could lead to the death penalty dismissed, any reference of fables, Robin Hoods, heroes or villains 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.