🔗 Share this article Mangione: The Story Behind the Story by John H Richardson – Sympathy for a Devil? On December 5, 2024, a leading publication published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Shot Dead 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 indeed both chilling and disturbing. But many Americans reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt like a release. Social media blew up. One post 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 good-looking, 26-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 prosecutors seeking the capital punishment. So who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the accused offense? These are the issues John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an investigation that delves into wider topics, too. The Making of a Subject A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson spent years researching the communities that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, writing stories about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an end-times scenario”. To uncover “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 Goodreads”. Their content covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own personal growth, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his correspondence with influencers 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 amorphous figure. Richardson tries to justify this by proposing that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. 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 ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by health insurance companies to reject claims. 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 significance there is seems to rest in Mangione’s existential anxiety 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 consensus seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either dominate, or eliminate humanity, or both. Gaps in the Narrative Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any significant information about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits increased by 33%. Ambiguous Findings By book’s end, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. More troubling, 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 closing remarks, Richardson delivers his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the mad king, the beast in the labyrinth and the emperor without clothes.” In that tale “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 legal representatives works to have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence 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 “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.