Suzie Miller’s novelisation of Inter Alia is out now. ‘Why has this accomplished theatre-maker delivered another underwhelming version of another celebrated play?’ asks Catriona Menzies-Pike. Composite: Guardian Design/Bec Lorrimer/Pan Macmillan Australia View image in fullscreen Suzie Miller’s novelisation of Inter Alia is out now. ‘Why has this accomplished theatre-maker delivered another underwhelming version of another celebrated play?’ asks Catriona Menzies-Pike. Composite: Guardian Design/Bec Lorrimer/Pan Macmillan Australia Australian book reviews Fiction Inter Alia by Suzie Miller review – an urgent play about rape and justice is undermined by its novelisation Bogged down by extra padding and a poorly crafted narrator, Miller’s book dilutes the potency of the original and diminishes its scope
About this content Catriona Menzies-Pike Thu 22 Oct 2026 23.00 CEST Last modified on Thu 22 Oct 2026 23.53 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google S uzie Miller’s acclaimed 2019 play, Prima Facie, was a visceral exposé of the cruelty of due process in rape trials that has, on any analysis, been tremendously successful. It has been staged in more than 50 countries, won countless awards and been adapted into a film starring Cynthia Erivo ; it has been used to educate judges and even resulted in changes to jury directions in rape trials, energising debate about better outcomes for survivors.
Miller is a prolific playwright (her latest of more than 40 plays, Strong is the New Pretty , is currently touring Australia), and Inter Alia , which premiered at London’s National Theatre in 2025, picks up themes that animated Prima Facie. The 2025 production starred Rosamund Pike as Jessica Parks: a feminist judge whose ethics are shaken when her 18-year-old son is accused of sexual assault. Pike gives a captivating performance of a desperate and disoriented woman working within a broken justice system. From the bench, Jessica has watched in dismay as defence lawyers exploit loopholes to keep their clients out of jail in rape trials. But when her son is accused, inconsistencies in the testimony of a traumatised victim give Jessica reason to hope he will be let off.
Read more Inter Alia was an effective piece of theatre – but Miller has transformed it into a novel and the results are infuriating. The book is presented as a legal drama about the collision of the ethical and the emotional but, unlike the play, it’s a story about a privileged woman coming to a belated understanding of her life and circumstances. If Prima Facie gained moral momentum by centring the experience of a survivor, the teenage rape victim in the novelisation is a prop in a personal growth narrative. And without the nuances and vulnerabilities conveyed by Pike, Jessica is a much-reduced character.
We learn a lot more about Jessica in the novel but she always seems surprised by the moment, as if her backstory crept up on her out of nowhere. Her marriage to the smug KC Michael is expanded too but, despite all the padding, the reader is given no grounds for the longevity of this relationship. Jessica tells us that Michael resents her for being named a judge before him; that he insinuated she only got the call because she was a woman. Michael is a sexist git but you wonder whether he might be on to something: in the play, Jessica exudes a competence carried by brazen confidence; but, in the novel, thanks to clunky writing, Jessica strikes the reader as imperceptive and foolish.
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