🔗 Share this article Mangione: The Making and the Meaning by John H Richardson – Understanding a Criminal? On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication ran the front-page story “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 assailant who then walked coolly away”. The daytime killing was truly chilling and disturbing. But many Americans had a different response: for those who faced insurance rejections or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. Social media blew up. 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 AI algorithm the insurance company created to increase earnings on your health.” Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was apprehended at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on criminal counts of murder, with the district attorney 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 inquiry that explores broader themes, too. The Making of a Subject A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, writing stories about people “cursed with realistic fears about an end-times scenario”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their subject matter covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own personal growth, both physical and mental”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his communications with online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify this by suggesting 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 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”, “deny” and “remove”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He looks at the indication Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what meaning there is seems to rest in Mangione’s philosophical dread 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 consensus seems to be that AI is going to eventually either dominate, or destroy us, or both. Missing Pieces Notably missing from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but never expected access to Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the media in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any detailed data about the victim, 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 might have motivated his accused actions. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him gives the reader the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a subtle approval 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 monster in the maze and the emperor without clothes.” In that tale “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 death penalty thrown out, any reference of fables, Robin Hoods, heroes or villains will not be admissible as evidence in support for this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.