According to Tom Kilroy, his captivating memoir materialized in response to a cataract operation in 2006, shocking his memory into being and imparting him with a uniquely tactile and sensuous perception of his own past.; Over the Backyard Wall describes a coming of age embodied by escape, self-discovery and a struggle to contend with the rigid culture of a small Irish town in Co.Kilkenny during WWII, with parents representing both sides of the civil war conflict of the 1920s.; He describes encounters with fellow Kilkenny artists Tony O'Malley and Hubert Butler, and writers such as Carson McCullers during his tour of the southern US states in the 1950s.; In keeping with Kilroy's previous works, Over the Backyard Wall utilizes the silences of the past to liberate the imagination, making use of social and political history to reinvigorate the shard-like nature of his own narrative memory.
