May
01
Prima Facie by Suzie Miller
I am a Suzie Miller tragic. I love her plays and have seen two fabulous ones of late. RBG (about Ruth Bader Ginsberg, US Supreme Court Justice and gender equality ‘shero’) and Jail Baby. Both brilliant!
Prima Facie, the one woman play, was made famous when Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) headlined in it in London’s Westend, and I am desperate to see it when it makes a return to Sydney (of course, sadly, without Jodie).
So now Prima Facie is a book. Praise Be and Blessed be the Fruit. And it’s got magic powers too because time stood still from the first line to the last. I forgot what time it was, where I was, who I was. Basically, a reading black hole.
It’s a horrible tale and particularly pertinent as this week thousands of Australians march (yet bloody again) to raise their voices against domestic and sexual violence against women. Prima Facie (meaning at face value more or less) is Tessa’s story but she is not alone. Countless women have been in her shoes and countless more will be.
We meet her as she’s rising through the ranks of the British legal system. Straight from a working-class background, she’s a young, brilliant Barrister who has honed her expertise defending those accused of assault. It is all a game and Tessa is an Olympic champion when in court. Life for her is good, controlled, controllable.
Until the game changes and Tessa is raped by her colleague who she’s in a secret relationship with. Suddenly it is her in the gut-wrenching position having to decide if she should go to the police, to charge the man responsible and worse, take him to court. Should she? Think of everything she’ll lose. Basically everything – as history tells us. The odds would absolutely not be in her favour. She knows too well how he’ll play it; she knows the questioning, the line of defence and how to sow doubt in a jury. The ease of deniability. She’d mastered the line of defence for her clients which makes everything she faces particularly awful.
And yet, she persists.
Told in two parts – pre rape and post rape – we see two very different Tessa’s. The untouchable and then the assaulted. It is an incredibly raw and searing journey; one we know where the victims pay the price for speaking out and the perpetrator can remain silent. I don’t need to tell you but this book can, at times, be a vile and utterly infuriating read (lots of There But the Grace of God Go I moments that women will recognise) but Miller is adept and gentle in building and navigating the two versions of Tessa. Even as everything is stripped from her, you see she is never truly broken.
The foul, gut-wrenching part of Prima Facie is the brutal rape but then, knowing the odds are stacked against the victim by coming forward is the double whammy. It is an emotional rollercoaster Readheads so buckle up. You’ll taste the bitter injustice page after page but don’t let it put you off. Read it. You must.
But that is just my two cents worth.
Readhead 