\chapter[the title \\ for index]{the title at chapter}
For any strange reason, PDFLaTeX was unable to compile and generate a PDF, if a put a \\ at this area (after \backmatter). I a leave the \\, there's no problem.
Why do you need this manual intervention at all? Line breaks in ToC entries should be done automatically by default. If you could give us a minimal example, we would have a clear problem description and finding a solution would become much easier.
My book has 2 prologues and some epilogues. Only for them, (not for the usual mainmatter chapters) i would an index TOC with 2 lines; The prologue name, and the autor of this prologue. So, for the prologues, i put a \\ inside the \chapter[the name at toc \\ by Steve]{The name at toc}...
The question was that, at backmatter (epilogues) the '\\' solution couldn't be done by this way (causes errors at pdflatex)... but yes!, coul be done (and is ok) putting the \protect\newline... So, thank you Stefan, for this tip!