I Could Read the Sky by Steve Pyke and Timothy O’Grady

About the book

I Could Read the Sky is a collaboration, in the shape of a lyrical novel, between writer Timothy O’Grady and photographer Steve Pyke. It tells the story of a man coming of age in the middle of this century. Now at its end, he finds himself alone, struggling to make sense of a life of dislocation and loss. He remembers his childhood in the west of Ireland and his decades of bewildered exile in the factories, potato fields and on the building sites of England. He is haunted by the faces of the family he left behind and by the land that is still within him. He remembers the country and the seascapes, the bars and the boxing booths, the music he played, and the woman he loved.

An old man lies alone and sleepless in London. Before dawn he is taken by an image from his childhood in the West of Ireland, and begins to remember a migrant’s life. Haunted by the faces and the land he left behind, he calls forth the bars and boxing booths of England, the potato fields and building sites, the music he played and the woman he loved.

Timothy O’Grady’s tender, vivid prose and Steve Pyke’s starkly beautiful photographs combine to make a unique work of fiction, an act of remembering suffused with loss, defiance and an unforgettable loveliness. An Irish life with echoes of the lives of unregarded migrant workers everywhere. Since it was first published in 1997, I Could Read the Sky has achieved the status of a classic.