Luigi: The Making and the Meaning by John H Richardson – Sympathy for a Devil?
On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was truly cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, the news felt like a release. Social media blew up. One comment 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 maximize profits on your health.”
Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on criminal counts of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what drove the alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an investigation that explores broader themes, too.
Understanding the Person
A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the groups that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an apocalyptic future”. To reveal “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 Goodreads”. Their subject matter covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own personal growth, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on social media. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify this by proposing that “Luigi’s mystery, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Throughout the book, Richardson attempts to cast his subject in archetypal terms.
Mangione is profoundly worried about the world around him, one where ‘everything is accelerating whether we like it or not’
The Meaning Behind the Crime
As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson uses as a clue three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “depose”, etched on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by medical insurers to reject claims. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what significance there is seems to rest in Mangione’s philosophical dread about the world around him, one where “the pace is quickening whether we like it or not, sliding faster and faster to the edge”; a world where the general belief seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either dominate, or destroy us, or both.
Missing Pieces
Notably missing from the book are conversations with the principal actors. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits increased by 33%.
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 apparent empathy for him gives the reader the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the mad king, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that tale “Robin Hoods come with a appealing vow … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the population is in pain and nothing makes sense anymore.”
One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives works to have charges that could lead to the death penalty dismissed, any mention of fables, Robin Hoods, champions or monsters will not be admissible as evidence in support for this handsome young man with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.
