Part investigation, part cultural X-ray ... The book’s opening chapters are its best ... The book’s power sometimes rests too heavily on the very surfaces it describes. Richardson builds much of his narrative from publicly available material...and less from firsthand interviews with people in Mangione’s orbit ... Absent this type of personal detail, the result feels meticulously curated but emotionally distant ... What’s missing is a deeper accounting of why Luigi’s act resonates now — in an America where algorithmic denials of health care collide with the algorithmic spread of resentment and despair ... Richardson writes beautifully. His reporting on the media aftermath, the dueling op-eds, the partisan spin, the influencer reels, is precise and often bleakly funny. But for all its elegance, Luigi offers relatively little fresh fieldwork.
Richardson is grappling with dark issues, but his writing has a light touch, with personal anecdotes and even a certain humor ... Richardson places the Mangione case squarely in the context of the perennial conflict between rich and poor that included the violent clashes between labor unions and robber barons in the late 19th century.
Rudderless ... The account’s too-ambitious scope, as it ranges from interviews with Mangione’s supporters to a recap of 14th-century peasant rebellions, blunts its sharpness. Readers will be left disappointed.
