A Thing or Two: True Tales from a (Mostly) Lucky Life

For over forty years, Jef Fall has been intriguing folks with his true tales. This book brings together thirty-six of his favorite “things” – his son’s preferred name for the tales – and here you will join in Jef’s quests to

Visit every county in the United States Unearth a buried treasure

Find a cousin in England See the Grand Canyon on muleback   

You’ll also learn why

Joan Rivers asked a cabby to take her one block Jef saw Santa Claus at the morgue on  New Year’s Eve  

Poet William Carlos Williams wanted Jef’s blood Jef’s thoracic x-ray was unsettled by a shamrock  The Rupps kept dry toast in every room of the house    

"Jef, you are one weirdly funny man."

– Jonathan May

BUGS IN HER TEA

Who would move in with their former mother-in-law? Jef Fall, for one, after a mild stroke left Nanana unable to manage on her own.

Bugs in Her Tea takes you with Jef, his former wife Ann, and Nanana on the ensuing adventure in caregiving. Humorous and difficult and moving--sometimes the days in Rutherford, New Jersey prove to be all three at once.

Special challenges blossom, too: Nanana's possessiveness and reluctance to leave the house; the ex-spouses working closely together again; tensions between mother and daughter; a mystifying physical decline.

“Captivating in its tenderness, humor, and enlightenment.”

— Lillian Mae Coffey

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born while his mother was passing through Manhattan, Jef Fall grew up in Rutherford (NJ), where he lucked out in having famed poet William Carlos Williams as his pediatrician.  After studies at Brown and Rutgers Universities, Jef worked for over twenty-three years as an academic librarian at Columbia University, where he witnessed the Columbia campus upheavals of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Later on, he conducted and transcribed oral histories, helped several people write their memoirs, and helped several others negotiate their last days on Earth.  In retirement, Jef has slowly turned into a scribbling night owl – one who still relishes his observation of life on the Lower Upper East Side of Manhattan. And beyond.