🔗 Share this article Luigi: 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 report went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both chilling and disturbing. But many Americans had a different response: for those who faced insurance rejections or struggled with medical bills, the news felt like a release. Online platforms erupted. One comment stated: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who should live or perish. That’s the job of the artificial intelligence system the insurance company created to increase earnings on your health.” Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what drove the alleged crime? 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, writing stories about people “cursed with realistic fears about an end-times scenario”. To uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, 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”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These primary sources, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead render him an amorphous figure. Richardson tries to justify 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 ‘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”, “refuse” and “depose”, engraved on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases 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 finds no proof; instead, what significance there is seems to lie in Mangione’s existential anxiety 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 dominate, or destroy us, or both. Missing Pieces Notably missing from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but never expected time with Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had chosen not to talk to the media in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from 2021 to 2023, company earnings increased by 33%. Unclear Conclusions By the conclusion, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his accused actions. More troubling, Richardson’s apparent empathy 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 presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth 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 accusations that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any mention of fables, folk heroes, champions or villains will not be allowed in court in defence of this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.