Prima Facie

October 23, 2023
In this bracing if somewhat stilted debut, playwright Miller adapts her Olivier-winning play about London criminal defense barrister Tessa Ensler, whose fierce faith in the law is challenged after she’s raped by a colleague. Though Tessa prides herself on being a champion for underdogs like her older brother, Johnny—whose juvenile run-ins with the justice system have tainted his professional prospects—she has surprisingly few qualms about defending men accused of sexual assault. Her favored tactic in these cases is superficially sympathetic but ultimately devastating cross-examinations of her client’s female accusers. One night, after a bout of heavy drinking, Tessa is assaulted by a colleague with whom she’s been carrying on an affair. As she wrestles with the same conundrums faced by the women she’s eviscerated on the stand, the novel hits its stride on the way to a climactic courtroom showdown. Miller’s narrative more than succeeds as an impassioned piece of advocacy that illuminates the tilted playing field facing sexual assault survivors. Without the immediacy of the stage, however, it can sometimes feel less like a novel than a brilliantly argued legal brief. Miller provides plenty of food for thought, but she doesn’t quite nail the transition from stage to page.

August 8, 2023
Prima Facie, Suzie Miller’s debut novel (adapted from her internationally award-winning 2019 play of the same name), is a relentless, arresting story of a criminal defence barrister whose passionate faith in the legal system is uprooted when, as a sexual assault survivor, she experiences it from the other side. Despite Tessa Ensler’s working-class background, she has forged a successful law career in a climate of often snobbish competition and made a name for herself through hard work rather than family wealth or privilege. The breathless energy and driving intensity of Miller’s play translates into a novel of punchy, sometimes fragmented prose tracing Tessa’s heartrending transition from the confident, slick professional who initiates us into the thrills and skills of her courtroom life to a traumatised (yet still strong) woman whose internal monologue becomes a barrage of self-criticism and doubts. Miller effortlessly and powerfully steers us back and forth in time—before, during and after the rape—and we see the inside of the courtroom as Tessa does, from both the bar table and witness box. The novel is intimate in every sense—narratively, sexually, emotionally and dramatically—and portrays Tessa’s shifting beliefs about the law and its capacity to enact real justice, from a raw, first-person perspective. Despite being somewhat peripheral, her relationships with her family and closest friends are drawn with compelling warmth and truth, offering a redemptive balance to the novel’s more harrowing aspects. Like the play, the book grabs you forcefully from the opening words, refusing to release you until the final pages.

May 31, 2024

The first half of playwright Miller's debut novel, adapted from her hit play of the same name, introduces listeners to Tessa Ensler, a brilliant criminal defense attorney in Britain. Tessa's first-person account of her life as a barrister is narrated with assurance by Jodie Comer (who also performed the role on stage), detailing how she defends countless men accused of rape and sexual assault and successfully helps them walk away. The second half of the novel takes a turn, as Tessa goes on a date with a colleague who violently rapes her. Everything she believes about the law is turned upside down as the tables are turned, and she attempts to find justice. Comer's narration of Miller's heart-wrenching and vivid novel captures Tessa's transformation from confident to broken and unsure of herself. As Comer passes the narrative among many characters, she seamlessly slips into different dialects. Although the brutal descriptions of sexual assault and its aftermath are disturbing, listeners will be moved by Tessa's bravery as she revisits the traumatic event in open court. VERDICT This graphic account of rape and how it can destroy a person's life evokes heartbreak and fury, as does Miller's compelling insight into the deeply flawed judicial system. A troubling but recommended listen.--Molly Olney-Zide

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