Book info

• Title The Green Mile
• Author Stephen King
• Year 1996
• Genre Horror

The Green Mile: those who walk it do not return, because at the end of that walk is the room in which sits Cold Mountain penitentiary's electric chair. In 1932 the newest resident on death row is John Coffey, a giant black man convicted of the brutal murder of two little girls. But nothing is as it seems with John Coffey, and around him unfolds a bizarre and horrifying story. Evil murderer or holy innocent - whichever he is - Coffey has strange powers which may yet offer salvation to others, even if they can do nothing to save him.

Thoughts

I didn’t know an awful lot about the Green Mile before I started. I knew of the film, but I’ve not seen it, and that it was about a prison guard and a giant of a prisoner. The rest was a mystery - it wasn’t until I bought the book that I knew it was written by Stephen King!

It grabbed me instantly, this horrifying tale of life (and death) in prison awaiting the electric chair. The serialised nature of the book meant we were flipping back and forth between the narrator in his old people’s home and as the prison guard on the “death row” ward. It’s violent and gruesome in places but none of it is out of place.

The story is sad, there are few uplifting passages. At the end I was left feeling exhausted and deflated, but not to the detriment of the story. It had me hooked, engrossed in the tale of this large man that could perform miracles, and I couldn’t wait to see how it all turned out. It wasn’t a happy ending but it was the right ending, and I thought it was a great read from start to finish.

Rating: 4 / 5