15 Stephen King stories ranked from heartwarming to horrifying

1. The Green Mile

Sometimes readers forget that Stephen King; famed as he is for terrifying clowns, zombie pets, and other eldritch horrors; can be downright sentimental. Nor has he always stayed in the lane of classic horror. Some of King’s best-known work has been pretty firmly grounded in the real world. All the more effective for the very real and very effective human characters that populate his stories.

If you need a little more convincing, then pick up The Green Mile. This 1996 novel tells the tale of an encounter between John Coffey, an inmate on death row, and supervisor Paul Edgecombe. Coffey at first seems like a very tall and very powerful black man, convicted of a horrifying rape and murder of two girls (it’s not much of a spoiler to say that Coffey is, in fact, innocent). However, Coffey has the ability to miraculously heal people and animals. He cures Edgecombe’s urinary tract infection, saves another warden’s wife from an aggressive brain tumor, and even resurrects a mouse named Mr. Jingles.

None of this serves to save John Coffey from the electric chair, though. For, as much as Stephen King draws on the heartwarming element of The Green Mile, he is unafraid to make you cry like a baby. Coffey—innocent, kind and a magical realist miracle worker—still cannot be saved.

Paul actually tries to help John, but the inmate stops him—the world is simply too cruel, and John is ready to escape by whatever means is presented to him. The reader is left both haunted by the story and comforted by its quietly good characters.