I finally finished this book. And oh, my.
This is one of the finest books I've ever read. It took me 7 months to read it. And it was worth it.
The Green Mile, by Stephen King
This book is about Paul Edgecomb, a man who works at Cold Mountain Penitentiary on cell block E, otherwise known as death row. The book takes place when Paul is very old, and living in a nursing home. Paul recounts his days on E block in a manuscript for his friend Elaine to read. After serving several years on what they call The Mile, Paul meets a man named John Coffey. Coffey is accused of killing and raping two little girls and is sentenced to death by electric chair. Not to mention, he is a huge black man, something that pretty much works against him automatically in the 1930s. After finding out that Coffey possesses magic healing powers, Edgecomb works against the system to prove Coffey is an innocent man. Along the way, we are introduced to many colorful, hateful, and surprising characters.
Warning: Spoilers follow here.
At first, Paul thinks that Coffey is guilty. After getting to know him, Paul realizes that Coffey is able to cure people. Even though Coffey cures Paul of a wicked kidney infection, cures the warden's wife of cancer, and later is discovered to have been trying to cure the little girls he is accused of murdering, there is no way for the men on E block to set Coffey free against the chair. Nobody would believe a black man wasn't guilty. He dies at the hands of Old Sparky, and leaves some food for thought and a year no one at Cold Mountain will ever forget. Paul realizes in his old age that everyone in his life has died, including his children, wife, and friends from the Mile. He wonders how long he will live, and once he realizes that Mr. Jingles, a mouse from the supply closet at Cold Mountain that Coffey brought back from the dead, finally dies, he realizes that he, too, is going to die someday. Not wanting to die without telling someone his biggest secret, he writes the story of John Coffey as it happened to him, which in turn is The Green Mile.
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Man, this book. Upon seeing the movie when I was around 16, I labeled it as one of my favorite movies of all time. After I realized it was a book, I had to read it. It was given to me one Christmas in college, and it sat on every bookshelf I ever moved it to. Back in August, I finally decided to read it. It has taken me this long, mostly due to things like forgetting about it, working, or catching up on TV shows instead of reading. But this book is SO good. It's gripping and shocking, and hats OFF to Frank Darabont for following the book! He did a very good job at that. I sincerely hated Stephen King before I read this book. I felt like he was very overrated, but this book means to me that he is as good a writer as people make him out to be. I may have to read other things by him now! This book is wonderful, and that last line is chilling. 5/5
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For Next Time:
Firefly Rain, by Richard Dansky
When Jacob left
home for a new life, he pretty much forgot all about Maryfield, North
Carolina. But Maryfield never forgot him. Or forgave him.
After a failed business venture
in Boston, Jacob Logan comes back to the small Southern town of his
childhood and takes up residence in the isolated house he grew up in.
Here, the air is still. The nights are black. And his parents are buried
close by. It should feel like home—but something is terribly wrong.
Jacob loses all his belongings in
a highway accident. His car is stolen from his driveway, yet he never
hears a sound. The townspeople seem guarded and suspicious. And Carl,
the property caretaker with so many secrets, is unnervingly
accommodating. Then there are the fireflies that light the night skies .
. . and die as they come near Jacob’s home. If it weren’t for the
creaking sounds after dark, or the feeling that he is being watched,
Jacob would feel so alone. He shouldn’t worry. He’s not.
-barnesandnoble.com
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