Prima Facie

DEBUT Tessa is a successful criminal-defense barrister with a winning record of defending men accused of sexual assault. A horrific event puts her on the other side of the table in Miller’s compelling debut novel that adapts her Laurence Olivier–winning play of the same name, which earned four Tony nominations when it moved from UK stages to the U.S. Tessa has a consensual late-night sexual encounter with a colleague, which leads to a subsequent dinner date where both consume plenty of alcohol. They retire to Tessa’s apartment and have consensual sex. Later, Tessa wakes feeling ill and retreats to the bathroom where she is sick. Her colleague carries her back to bed and when he tries to initiate sex again, she refuses, pushes him away and struggles. He holds her down and rapes her. Horrified, Tessa files charges against him, even knowing that women are often the losers in sexual-assault cases. Miller successfully captures the mental anguish and confusion of the assault itself and the horror of reliving the events in the courtroom.