The Stephen King serial novel that became the film The Green Mile is The Green Mile. King originally published it in 1996 as six separate installments, released monthly in paperback rather than as one conventional hardcover novel.
The story is narrated by Paul Edgecombe, a former prison officer reflecting on his time supervising death-row inmates at Cold Mountain Penitentiary during the 1930s. The title refers to the green linoleum corridor leading from the prison cells to the electric chair. Its central prisoner, John Coffey, is a physically imposing man whose supernatural compassion contrasts sharply with the violence surrounding him.
The novel’s episodic structure helped create cliffhangers between installments, making the work resemble a television serial or magazine serial. The 1999 film adaptation was directed by Frank Darabont and starred Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecombe and Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey. It is often confused with “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” another King prison story adapted by Darabont, but the two are separate works.