In I Could Read the Sky, a tender and evocative book by writer Timothy O’Grady and photographer Steve Pyke, first published in 1997, an old man lies alone and sleepless in Kentish Town, London, where he recalls scenes from his past. Born in the west of Ireland, he remembers the cottage where he grew up surrounded by neighbours and family, and the grinding poverty that led him to leave, alongside scores of others, to seek work on English potato fields and building sites. In England, he shakes off the day’s exertions in pubs where there is music (he is an accomplished accordionist) and dancing, and where he meets Maggie, the love of his life. But tragedy strikes soon after they marry.
O’Grady is the narrator, whose tone – much like his spare, poetic prose – is reflective, mournful, imbued with the loneliness of a man who is haunted by all he has left behind. The book’s title is taken from a list of skills relayed by our protagonist: “I could mend nets. Thatch a roof. Build stairs. Make a basket from reeds … I could dance sets. Read the sky.”
