"Teige Foley was only a boy when his mother vanished angrily into the Irish mist and the family's great adventure began. His father, Francis, a man of thwarted dreams, dared to steal a valuable telescope from the manor house where he worked. More than a spyglass, it was his passage to the stars, to places he could not otherwise go. And its theft forced Francis Foley and his four sons to flee the narrow life of poverty that imprisoned them.".

"But Ireland was a country "wilder than it is now." Torn apart by the violent countryside, the young boys would lose sight of their father, and each would have to find his own path...Tomas, the eldest, weak for the pleasures of the flesh...Finan, who would chase his longings across the globe...Finbar, Finan's twin, surrendering to other people's magic...and Teige, the youngest, the one who has a way with horses, the only one to truly return home.

From boarding house to gypsy caravans, from the sere fields where potatoes wither on their stalks to fertile new lands on the other side of the earth, apart and adrift, reunited and reborn, they would learn about the callings of God, the power of love, and the meaning of family in a place where stars look down - and men look up."--BOOK JACKET.