#BookReview of #PrimaFacie by Suzie Miller | @SuzieMillerWrtr

‘Based on the award-winning play starring Jodie Comer‘
– Prima Facie

[ About Prima Facie ]

This is not life. This is law.

Tessa Ensler is a brilliant barrister who’s forged her career in criminal defence through sheer determination. Since her days at Cambridge, she’s carefully disguised her working class roots in a male-dominated world where who you know is just as important as what you know. Driven by her belief in the right to a fair trial and a taste for victory, there’s nothing Tessa loves more than the thrill of getting her clients acquitted.

It seems like Tessa has it made when she is approached for a new job and nominated for the most prestigious award in her field.

But when a date with a charismatic colleague goes horribly wrong, Tessa finds that the rules she’s always played by might not protect her, forcing her to question everything she’s ever believed in . . .

[ My Review ]

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller will be published March 14th with Hutchinson Heinemann and is described as a debut ‘where power, patriarchy and morality diverge.’ Originally a one-woman play, written by Suzie Miller, it made its premier in Australia in 2019 before moving to The West End in 2022 and Broadway in the spring of 2023. The play started a conversation that has led to changes in the UK legal system as well as impacting the training methods of judges in Northern Ireland and police officers in North Yorkshire, with ripple effects that continue to be felt across the judicial system and beyond.

Suzie Miller wanted to keep the conversation going so she set about rewriting Prima Facie as a novel, digging deeper into the characters, their stories and the world they inhabit.

“I am hoping this novel creates more of such change, and that it contributes towards a dialogue between all people regardless of their gender, and that the conversation specifically contributes to change in the experiences of all women, our daughters , and their daughters.”

I haven’t seen the play but the reviews across the board are phenomenal with Deadline stating that it is a ‘scalding indictment of the law and its limits directed with energy and empathy.’ Having now read the book I can understand why.

Prima Facie is Tessa Ensler’s story. An exceptional and in-demand defence barrister, Tessa has fought against all the odds to reach this position and is confident at what she does. Tessa was from a working class environment where her academic achievements gained her a scholarship studying law at Cambridge. From the outset Tessa knew she was different from her peers but she was determined and came through her degree and education with top marks, fulfilling her ambition to work within the law.

Tessa wholeheartedly believed and trusted in the judicial system. She was a first-class barrister. For Tessa the win or the loss was all that ultimately mattered. As a criminal defence barrister, Tessa crossed paths with individuals that were guilty. She won their cases for them, never questioning their innocence or otherwise. Once she could break down witnesses and make sufficient holes in cases to push the jury to a not-guilty verdict, Tessa was doing her job correctly. Tessa had a very black and white perspective of the judicial system. It was built on precedent and fact, not muddy waters and insufficient evidence. Tessa worked with facts and, like a spider in a web, she would draw out the witnesses and then snare them, breaking them down and destroying their voices from the dock.

Tessa successfully defended individuals accused of sex-related crimes and bore little internal guilt when they walked free. She was just doing her job. But everything changed for Tessa when a night out with a colleague took a very dark turn.

Immediately everything Tessa has ever believed in is destroyed and torn asunder. Her life, her career, her belief, her trust, all shattered in an instant. Tessa has a strong personality but she is facing the biggest challenge of her life, unsure of the road ahead. Tessa’s world has been upturned in the most frightening way and now Tessa must fight for herself, for her reputation and for every woman out there.

What transpires, and the court case that follows, is a challenging and very disconcerting reading experience but it is also extraordinarily riveting and preoccupying. On completion I was angry, disgusted and left feeling quite shaken, unable to shift my thoughts away from it. Suzie Miller has written an intense and complex novel that explores the court dynamic between the victim, the accused and their legal team and how the justice system has rules in place that are so inherently imbalanced against the victim of a sexually related crime.

Prima Facie is an acutely explored debut that dives into the impact of court decisions and the manner in which women are treated as the witness in court, following a degrading, life-changing and brutal experience. Hard-hitting and demanding, Prima Facie is a book that needs to be read, a book that will challenge and enrage, a book that will hopefully have an impact on future legal rules and decisions set.

[ Bio ]

Suzie Miller is an international playwright, librettist and screenwriter. She has a background in law, and has won numerous awards, including the Australian Writers’ Guild, Kit Denton Fellowship for Writing with Courage and an Olivier Award.

She lives in London and Sydney and is developing major theatre, film and television projects across the UK, USA and Australia.

X ~ @SuzieMillerWrtr