🔗 Share this article Luigi: The Story Behind the Story by John H Richardson – Sympathy for a Devil? On December 5, 2024, a leading publication ran the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was indeed both cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, the news felt like a release. 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 maximize profits on your health.” Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on federal and state charges of murder, with prosecutors seeking the capital punishment. So who is Mangione? And what drove the alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an investigation that explores broader themes, 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, producing articles about people “plagued by genuine concerns 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 “focus on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on social media. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. 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 profoundly worried 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 – “postpone”, “refuse” and “remove”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by health insurance companies to reject claims. He looks at the indication Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what meaning 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, sliding faster and faster to the edge”; a world where the consensus seems to be that AI is going to eventually either dominate, or eliminate humanity, or both. Missing Pieces Conspicuous by their absence from the book are interviews with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the media 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 2021 to 2023, company earnings rose significantly. Unclear Conclusions By book’s end, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what could have driven his accused actions. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him gives the reader the disturbing feeling of having been exposed to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that tale “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the people are suffering and nothing makes sense anymore.” One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any reference of fables, folk heroes, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in support for this attractive individual with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.