Mangione: The Making and the Meaning by John H Richardson – Understanding a Criminal?
On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper ran the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was indeed both cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. 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 increase earnings on your health.”
Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus 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 drove 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 journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the communities 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 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 communications with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on social media. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him 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 trickster magic”. Throughout the book, 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”, “deny” and “depose”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms sometimes used by medical insurers to deny coverage. He examines 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 rest in Mangione’s existential anxiety about the world around him, one where “everything is accelerating whether we like it or not, moving rapidly to the edge”; a world where the general belief seems to be that AI is going to eventually either dominate, or eliminate humanity, or both.
Missing Pieces
Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the principal actors. Richardson asked, of course, but never expected time with Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the media in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any significant information about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits rose significantly.
Unclear Conclusions
By book’s end, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s final lines, Richardson delivers his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth and the emperor without clothes.” In that fable “outlaw heroes come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain and nothing makes sense anymore.”
One thing is certain: as Mangione’s defence team works to have accusations that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any reference of fables, Robin Hoods, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in support for this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.