🔗 Share this article Mangione: The Story Behind the Story by John H Richardson – Understanding a Criminal? On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper ran the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report then noted that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was indeed both chilling and disturbing. But many Americans reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, 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 artificial intelligence system 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 graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a fast-food restaurant 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 alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that delves into wider topics, too. The Making of a Subject A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the communities that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories about people “cursed with realistic fears about an apocalyptic future”. To uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. 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 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 amorphous figure. Richardson tries to justify this by suggesting that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms. 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 uses as a clue three words – “postpone”, “deny” and “remove”, engraved on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by health insurance companies to reject claims. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, which could have been a reason for an attack, but finds no proof; 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 destroy us, or both. Gaps in the Narrative Notably missing from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his family made it clear that they had decided against speaking to the media in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any significant information about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from the early 2020s, company earnings rose significantly. Ambiguous Findings By the conclusion, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s character or what might have motivated his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the emperor without clothes.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a appealing vow … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.” One thing is certain: as Mangione’s defence team works to have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence dismissed, any mention of myths, folk heroes, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this attractive individual with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.