Mangione: The Story Behind the Story by John H Richardson – Sympathy for a Devil?
On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article then noted that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was truly 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 read: “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.”
Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on criminal counts of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. 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 explores broader themes, too.
Understanding the Person
A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson spent years researching the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “cursed with realistic fears about an end-times scenario”. To uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first examines Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on Goodreads”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own personal growth, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his communications with online personalities and authors as well as his many posts on social media. 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”. Throughout the book, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.
Mangione is deeply anxious 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 uses as a clue three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “depose”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by health insurance companies to deny coverage. 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 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, sliding faster and faster to the edge”; a world where the general belief seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either take control, or destroy us, or both.
Missing Pieces
Notably missing from the book are interviews with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, company earnings increased by 33%.
Unclear Conclusions
By the conclusion, the audience 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 disturbing feeling of having been exposed to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, 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 people are suffering and nothing makes sense anymore.”
One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any mention of myths, Robin Hoods, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in support for this handsome young man with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.