The Green Mile
Masterfully told and as suspenseful as it is haunting, The Green Mile is Stephen King’s classic #1 New York Times bestselling dramatic serial novel and inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Tom Hanks.
Welcome to Cold Mountain Penitentiary, home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. Convicted killers all, each awaits his turn to walk “the Green Mile,” the lime-colored linoleum corridor leading to a final meeting with Old Sparky, Cold Mountain’s electric chair. Prison guard Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities over the years working the Mile, but he’s never seen anything like John Coffey—a man with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, condemned for a crime terrifying in its violence and shocking in its depravity. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecombe is about to discover the terrible, wondrous truth about John Coffey—a truth that will challenge his most cherished beliefs…
- Pages
- 500
- First published
- December 16, 1999
- Language
- English
- Edition
- Ebook
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Shelved by 7 Litcadians
Reviews
Started August 16, 2026 · Finished August 20, 2026
My initial thoughts while reading were that King should’ve called this The Yellow Mile with how often our protagonist talks about urinating and his UTI. However, as I became immersed in the rest of the actual storyline, I was shocked—bad pun intended—by the overall depth of these characters and the emotional appeal. Coffey’s execution becomes that much more heartbreaking once we’re forced to acknowledge the corruption of such an institution, especially within this historical context. He was “doomed from the start,” as the saying goes. I immersive-read this book, and the narrator did such a great job with voicing these various characters as well as Paul’s inner thoughts and ramblings. This was so sad but fantastically done, and how interesting that it was initially published in serial form!
Finished June 17, 2022