Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

Publisher's Synopsis

Tessa is a thoroughbred. A young, brilliant barrister from a working-class background now at the top of her game: defending, cross-examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case. The law is a game and she is its most talented player.

One sickening night, though, Tessa finds herself in a position countless women - one in three - have been in before her. And she's faced with a gut-wrenching, life-changing decision. Will she take the stand to testify about her rape, with the full awareness that the system has not been built to protect her?

My Review of Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

Prima Facie is an incredibly powerful book dealing with sexual assault and the fallout that takes place in the aftermath. Suzie Miller’s book is an adaptation from her successful play of the same name and I can only imagine what the experience of seeing Jodie Comer’s performance on stage taking on the Tessa Ensler role would be like.  

Tessa Ensler is a barrister who believes that what she does is an important part in serving the legal system, in finding the legal truth. She has pulled herself up from a working class background to earn herself a prized scholarship at Cambridge and, through more hard work, has become enjoyed great success in her field.

The early part of the book, labelled as the “then” sections, paints for us the picture of a strong and confident woman who is quickly making a name for herself as a successful defense barrister. She’s firmly of the belief that the legal system works for everyone and she is merely ensuring that she is playing the necessary role of establishing the legal truth of the matter when she works as an advocate for her accused clients.

When she’s raped by a man she liked and trusted her ideological beliefs around the legal system and her role in it is destroyed. But she’s prepared to put her reputation and career on the line in the belief that justice will sit on the side of the victim.

The “now” portion of the book, the part following the rape, runs through a harrowing range of emotions as Tessa attempts to deal with her experience. As the victim, she feels her power stripped away and, even knowing how the game is played, she learns first hand the difficulty in clearly explaining what happened without having her words skewed against her by a good barrister.

The fact that her specialty tended to be the defense of men accused of sexual assault with a high success rate in securing a not guilty verdict could be seen as a great irony in the story. It’s certainly something that gives Tessa pause later on during her harrowing trial, particularly when she comes to the shattering realisation that it wasn’t necessarily her great talent as a barrister that led to her success in winning sexual assault cases for her male clients.  

Prima Facie is a confronting story, beautifully written with a thoughtful, carefully conceived set-up establishing Tessa’s background as a fighter. We know this woman. She’s smart, confident, assured and certain about where her life’s headed. And then everything about her’s cruelly ripped from her. Her confidence and self-belief are torn apart as she realises the legal system is not quite as simple as testing the law to ascertain the “legal truth”.

One of the most glaring facts that stands out as Prima Facie is brought to its conclusion is that the law has, and continues to, fail women terribly. It’s novels (and plays) such as this that throw a much needed light on a part of our society that still needs a lot of work before we can begin to consider that victims are being properly heard and that suitable change is going to be made. 

As was intended when Suzie Miller first wrote the play and again with the novelization of the story, Prima Facie shines a damning light on the court system. It’s an intense and deeply thought provoking story, it sparks outrage and that outrage rightly keeps on simmering. It stays with you long after turning the last page.