Father & Son, Show & Tell
In the early days of Studio 360, we heard from a father and son who collaborated on a book called Show & Tell. The father, photographer Thomas Roma, took pictures and his son, eight-year-old Giancarlo, wrote very short stories as captions for them. Some of the captions had some surprisingly grown-up insight into the adult world of loss and disappointment. “I’m thinking about all the things that can go wrong instead of right,” Giancarlo said at the time.
A decade later, we sent Hillary Frank, host of WNYC's podcast The Longest Shortest Time, to check in with the Romas. Giancarlo, now a college graduate, and his father are still working together. The Waters of Our Time is their new book of family photos taken by Thomas, and again captioned by Giancarlo. But this time, the book reveals a deep loss in the family’s history — one that helps to explain eight-year-old Giancarlo’s world-weariness, and makes The Waters of Our Time both beautiful and heartbreaking.
Listen to the 2002 story:
