I really like part four of The Green Mile. Not for any of the supernatural aspects, nor even the goings-on at Cold Mountain Penitentiary. Nah, what I really liked about The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix was the very first chapter.
At the beginning of the installment, an old Paul Edgecombe writes about writing while staying at the Georgia Pines old folks home. From the aside about his kids forcing him to move there, to the tenderness his ladyfriend extends toward him as he actually sits down to write of his part in John Coffey’s story. In between Edgecombe has an encounter with a particularly perverse orderly, one who works the job because he likes to lord it over the old and feeble. Much like Percy Wetmore, the sadistic pain-in-the-ass guard on the Green Mile. That first chapter has so much more real feeling emotion than the shock, horror, and anger later in the book when Eduard Delacroix’s execution doesn’t go according to plan.
That later part isn’t bad, but it is merely part of the growing escalation of what happens with John Coffey and (perhaps) Percy Wetmore in the last two of the serials. It raised the level of anticipation for them quite well, but in and of itself, I had a hard time feeling much horror or disgust.
Title: The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix
Author: Stephen King
Cover creator: Robert Hunt
Series: The Green Mile; 4
Imprint / publisher: Signet / Penguin
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 90 p.
Publication date: June 1996
ISBN-10: 0-451-19055-6
