The Invisible Prison: Scenes from an Irish Childhood

Irish poet and broadcaster Pat Boran's bestselling prose memoir is an antidote to the pervasive 'misery memoir' of recent times. Instead it is an evocative, affectionate and humorous portrait of small-town Ireland in the late 1960s and early '70s, made up of short self-contained scenes which combine to form a unique record of a time and a convincing portrait of a young mind coming to terms with the limits of received wisdom.

Part memoir, part social history, part meditation on community itself, The Invisible Prison is, most of all, a celebration of the freedom, innocence and joys of childhood, against the somewhat darker backdrop of our times.