The Green Mile

This is King at his most humane: a supernatural story built on grief, guilt, and the horror of punishing the wrong man. It's for readers who want emotion over gore, and for anyone fascinated by moral dilemmas—what do you do when the law and justice point in opposite directions? The serialized structure keeps the tension high, and the ending lingers for years.

1. 1

   Act 1

   The Mouse on the Mile

   Cold Mountain Penitentiary, 1932. Paul Edgecombe walks the Green Mile, the death row block named for its faded green linoleum floor, and narrates the story from a nursing home in 1996, aged 104. The block's newest arrival is John Coffey, a 6 feet 8 inches tall Black man convicted of raping and murdering the nine-year-old Detterick twins, Kathe and Cora. Coffey weeps constantly and is terrified of the dark. Paul's main headache is Percy Wetmore, a sadistic young guard whose aunt is the Governor's wife, making him untouchable. Eduard 'Del' Delacroix, a Cajun inmate, discovers a mouse on the Green Mile. Brutal Howell nicknames it 'Steamboat Willie' (a reference to the Disney cartoon), but Del renames it Mr. Jingles and teaches it tricks, including rolling a wooden spool. Percy stomps the mouse to death in front of Del, and Coffey asks to hold the crushed animal. A brilliant light appears, and the mouse is restored to life, fully healed. Paul has just witnessed something impossible from a man the state plans to kill.

2. 2

   Act 2

   The Healing Touch

   Paul suffers from a severe urinary tract infection. John Coffey calls him over to his cell, grabs him, and presses his hand against Paul's groin. A warm, healing energy flows through Paul, and the infection is completely cured. This deepens Paul's suspicion that this condemned man is something rare. William 'Wild Bill' Wharton arrives on the Mile, a young, dangerous multiple murderer. He feigns a drugged stupor, then attacks guard Dean Stanton, nearly strangling him before being subdued. He prefers to be called 'Billy the Kid,' a name tattooed on his forearm. Wharton urinates on Harry Terwilliger through the bars of his cell and later spits a chewed-up Moon Pie into Brutus 'Brutal' Howell's face. Percy is offered an administrative job at Briar Ridge psychiatric hospital, but he refuses to leave until he is allowed to supervise an execution. Paul reluctantly lets him run Delacroix's. Percy deliberately fails to soak the sponge in brine that goes inside the electrode cap. When the switch is thrown, Del catches fire in the electric chair and dies a prolonged, agonizing death. Paul is haunted by guilt for allowing it. Warden Hal Moores confides to Paul that his wife, Melinda, is dying of an inoperable brain tumor the size of a lemon. Paul begins to consider using John Coffey's healing power to help her.

3. 3

   Act 3

   Night Journey

   The guards drug Wharton's drink and lock Percy in the padded restraint room in a straitjacket. They then secretly smuggle John Coffey out of the prison in the middle of the night to take him to Warden Moores' house. John Coffey draws the brain tumor out of Melinda Moores through his mouth, inhaling the sickness into his own body. He suffers terribly but does not release it. Melinda is completely cured. Back on the Mile, John Coffey grabs Percy and exhales the sickness drawn from Melinda into Percy's mouth. Percy, in a trance-like state, walks to Wharton's cell and shoots him dead with his own gun before falling into a permanent catatonic state. Paul investigates and discovers that Wharton was the true killer of the Detterick twins. John Coffey had found the girls, tried to revive them, and was discovered holding their bodies. Coffey later confirms this, saying he saw Wharton's crime when he touched him. Paul now knows the state is about to execute an innocent man. John Coffey tells Paul he is ready to die, saying, 'I'm tired, boss. Tired of bein on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I'm tired of never havin me a buddy to be with, to tell me where we's goin to, comin from, or why. Mostly I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other.'

4. 4

   Act 4

   Coffey on the Mile

   John Coffey's execution is the last one Paul participates in. Coffey asks Paul not to put the black silk mask over his head because he is afraid of the dark. Paul complies, and Coffey is executed in the electric chair. Paul transfers to Boys' Correctional with Brutal shortly after Coffey's execution. He reveals that those healed by John Coffey gained an unnaturally long lifespan. Mr. Jingles is still alive 64 years later, in 1996. In the Georgia Pines nursing home, Paul introduces his friend Elaine Connelly to Mr. Jingles. The mouse dies moments later, having lived since 1932. Elaine dies of a heart attack three months after hearing Paul's story. Paul reveals that on the day of his wife Janice's death in a 1956 bus accident, he saw the ghost of John Coffey standing by the road. The novel ends with Paul, now 104 years old and alone in the nursing home, wondering how much longer he will live. He writes, 'We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.'

Anyone who wants Stephen King at his most humane, blending horror with a devastating meditation on mercy and guilt. Readers who like moral dilemmas wrapped in supernatural mystery, and who can stomach an execution scene or two, will be gripped.

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