🔗 Share this article Mangione: The Making and the Meaning by John H Richardson – Sympathy for a Devil? On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication 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 assailant who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Social media blew up. 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 created to increase earnings on your health.” Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too. The Making of a Subject A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “cursed with realistic fears about an apocalyptic future”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of 295 books on a reading platform”. Their subject matter covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These original materials, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify 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 symbolic roles. Mangione is deeply anxious about the world around him, one where ‘everything is accelerating whether we like it or not’ Interpreting the Incident As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson takes as his lead three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “depose”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by medical insurers to deny coverage. He looks at the indication Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, 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, moving rapidly 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 Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but never expected access to Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had decided against speaking to the press in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any significant information about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from 2021 to 2023, company earnings rose significantly. Ambiguous Findings By book’s end, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character 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 presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the mad king, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that fable “outlaw heroes come with a appealing vow … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the people are suffering and everything is confusing anymore.” One thing is clear: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any reference of myths, Robin Hoods, heroes or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.