Author(s): Manfred Jurgensen

General

What is the nature of human love? Burt enters his office one day to find a large handwritten folder marked "CONFIDENTIAL". The unexpected package has come from an old university mate: a charming, successful, and well-loved Australian man named Ted Harris. Twenty-five years post-university, Ted seems to have it all: a partnership in a successful law firm, respect, wealth, and the perfect wife. However, as Burt delves deeper into these documents - which turns out to be an intensely personal confessional - he discovers that things are not what they seem, and that Ted harbours a dark and mysterious past relating to his first wife, peculiar Swiss biochemist Yvonne. In The Other Wife, Manfred Jurgensen uses his unique writing style and several narrative voices to examine the internal conflicts of disease, our responsibility for those we care for, and the very nature of this undefinable thing we call love. The seemingly contradictory senses of menace and sensitivity exist in an uneasy ease in Manfred Jurgensen's writing. -Lily Brett ...complex and confident, ambitious, yet always assured as it explores our solitariness in the midst of social life.
-The Canberra Times Manfred Jurgensen is a gifted writer who knows how to surprise the reader. -Elizabeth Jackson, Inkwell New York