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Author: Stephen King
Publication Date: 2 Sep 1999
Publisher:ORION
ISBN:978-0752826752
472 pages
Plot Summary taken from Goodreads:
At Cold Mountain Penitentiary, along the lonely stretch of cells known as the Green Mile, condemned killers such as ‘Billy the Kid’ Wharton and the possessed Eduard Delacroix await death strapped in ‘Old Sparky’. But good or evil, innocent or guilty, prisoner or guard, none has ever seen the brutal likes of the new prisoner, John Coffey, sentenced to death for raping and murdering two young girls. Is Coffey a devil in human form? Or is he a far, far different kind of being?
There are more wonders in heaven and hell than anyone at Cold Mountain can imagine and one of those wonders might just have stepped in amongst them
My Thoughts
Stephen King has the great ability to create a brilliant setting and characters in his novels that I can actually see myself beside them watching the story unfold in front of my eyes and to me this always signals a great novel.
I loved reading this novel as a whole as they were still bits of it that were like a series. For instance the repeat of what had happened at the start of each part, I think this adds character to the book and taken this away the book may have lost some of its character.
Raw human emotion is present throughout this book. Especially as it is dealing with the execution of human beings whether they have done something wrong or not. All the characters that get executed bring a new breath of life to the book as we are seeing them right through from there crime to their eventual punishment. I also loved the stories of the guards and how they deal with the raw emotions of having to execute someone.
I am going to leave this as a short review as I feel I am just going to go on about how great Stephen King is. However I will leave with my last thought which is Stephen King is ONE OF THE BEST STORYTELLERS of his generation and I strongly believe that no one should put this book down unless they have read it!
>One of the best storytellers of all time! I have a whole shelf dedicated just to his books, and am slowly working my way through reading them all.
>Totally agree! I have read most of his books the rest are sitting waiting to be read.
>While I don't care for the horror genre King started out in, I whole heatedly agree with your assessment of "ONE OF THE BEST STORYTELLERS of his generation".http://www.ManOfLaBook.com
>I really liked this book, especially the parts that, as you point out, deal with the raw emotions of the characters. Sometimes I think King's work misses the mark (see: IT) but works like this, Misery and some of his short stories are great.
>I liked the movie… didn't realize he wrote the book. –I hear Stephen King and I think ..scary books ..and I don't do well with scary! Maybe I'll have to check him out… any suggestions on one that is NOT scary? This book isn't scary in the movie just intense!
>This book isn't scary I would just say it deals with an intense subject. So I think it would be a good one to start of with.
>I agree, King is often misread as scary when he's more intense. At least moreso nowadays. Love The Green Mile. I need to get going on a review for this
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>I have only read one of King's books, Misery, which I remember enjoying. I don't like horror stuff, but this sounds like it might be something I would enjoy.
>I remember reading this book as a kid. It was so incredible to me at the time because I didn't know about series books. I remember being so excited to go to the grocery store with my dad waiting for the next book in the series. The story is incredible too