The Green Mile

About The Green Mile

Paul Edgecombe, head guard on E Block -- the death-row wing nicknamed 'the Green Mile' for its sickly-green linoleum -- narrates the arrival of John Coffey, a giant, gentle Black man convicted of murdering two young girls. Coffey turns out to possess a miraculous healing gift, and as Edgecombe and his fellow guards come to know him, the certainty of his guilt begins to crack even as his execution date approaches. Stephen King wrote The Green Mile as a serialized novel in the tradition of Charles Dickens, publishing it in six slim paperback installments between March and August 1996, with each volume ending on a cliffhanger and King writing later parts without knowing exactly how earlier ones had landed with readers.

Set largely in 1932 Louisiana with a framing story in a present-day nursing home, the serial builds from prison-drama realism into open supernatural territory as Coffey's power, and the price of using it, become clear. It became a critical and commercial success in its original serialized form and was collected into a single-volume novel later the same year; the 1999 film adaptation, starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan, is one of the most acclaimed of King's many screen adaptations.

How to read this series

The six parts were designed to be read in strict order, each picking up moments after the last one ended -- this is one continuous novel rather than six independent stories, so read The Two Dead Girls first and continue straight through to Coffey on the Mile. Most readers today encounter the story in the single-volume 'complete novel' edition published later in 1996, which reproduces all six parts back to back; either format tells the same uninterrupted story, so use whichever edition you can find.