Luigi: The Making and the Meaning by John H Richardson – Sympathy for a Devil?
On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication ran the headline “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both chilling and disturbing. But numerous US citizens 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 stated: “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 designed to increase earnings on your health.”
Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the capital punishment. So who is Mangione? And what drove the accused offense? These are the issues John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that explores broader themes, too.
Understanding the Person
A journalist for Esquire magazine, 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 apocalyptic future”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of 295 books on a reading platform”. Their content ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his communications with online personalities and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead present him as an amorphous figure. Richardson tries to justify this by suggesting that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old trickster magic”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.
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 uses as a clue three words – “postpone”, “deny” and “depose”, engraved on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by medical insurers to reject claims. He examines the evidence 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 lie in Mangione’s philosophical dread about the world around him, one where “the pace is quickening whether we like it or not, sliding faster and faster to the edge”; a world where the general belief seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either dominate, or destroy us, or both.
Gaps in the Narrative
Notably missing from the book are conversations with the principal actors. Richardson asked, of course, but never expected time with Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had chosen not to talk to the press in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from the early 2020s, UHC profits increased by 33%.
Ambiguous Findings
By book’s end, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what might have motivated his accused actions. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that fable “outlaw heroes come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”
One thing is clear: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence dismissed, any mention of myths, Robin Hoods, champions 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.
