🔗 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 headline “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was truly cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt like a release. Online platforms erupted. One comment read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the artificial intelligence system the insurance company created to increase earnings on your health.” Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, 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 accused offense? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too. Understanding the Person A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the communities that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “cursed with realistic fears 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 arrested, 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 body and mind”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his communications with online personalities and authors as well as his many posts on social media. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead present him as 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 trickster magic”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson attempts to cast his subject in symbolic roles. Mangione is profoundly worried 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 health insurance companies to deny coverage. He examines the evidence Mangione had a chronic back condition, which might have provided motive for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what significance there is seems to rest in Mangione’s existential anxiety 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. Gaps in the Narrative Notably missing from the book are conversations with the principal actors. Richardson made requests, but never expected access to Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had chosen not to talk 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. Unclear Conclusions By the conclusion, the audience has no clear understanding of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his accused actions. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the mad king, the beast in the labyrinth and the naked leader.” In that fable “outlaw heroes come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the people are suffering and nothing makes sense 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 mention of myths, Robin Hoods, heroes or monsters will not be admissible as evidence in defence of this attractive individual with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.