Restless Souls

“A great rattlebag of a novel, Restless Souls turns genre inside out. At turns comedic, at turns literary, at turns thriller, at turns philosophical, it never stops being a page-turner. Mixing humour with its attendant darkness, Sheehan postulates that we all must eventually face our own history. Ultimately this is a road journey into memory.”
—Colum McCann, author of the National Bestseller Let The Great World Spin

“Restless Souls is a hilariously shambolic road trip, a moving, freaked out, at times bruisingly mordant examination of the purgatorial agonies of PTSD, and above all a bawdy, alive, profane panegyric to the indissoluble bonds of friendship.” —Colin Barrett, author of Young Skins, National Book Award 5 Under 35 Honoree, and Winner of the Guardian First Book Award

“Restless Souls is the funniest sad book I’ve read in a long time, and a first novel of amazing complexity and maturity. Sheehan shows us the traumas of war and family like a seasoned veteran of both, and administers jokes like a battlefield nurse. A terrific debut from a dynamic new writer.”
—J. Robert Lennon, author of Broken River

“Restless Souls is a terrific debut novel, bold and wise, each page lit with wit and with feeling. In his examination of friendship, Ireland, and a distant Sarajevo under siege, Dan Sheehan marks himself out as a writer to watch.”
—Jonathan Lee, author of High Dive

“’Bittersweet’ might be the word for the feeling Dan Sheehan conjures up with this tale of three childhood friends trying to put things right, except that the warmth and depth with which he portrays the challenges of friendship go way beyond sweetness, and there’s nothing bitter about the anger and darkness into which he is unafraid to send his characters; instead, this is a story of what happens when the best of intentions meet the hardest of truths. Here are the shadow of war, the long reach of trauma, and the moments when it becomes clear that shared memories, and banter, and boyhood code, may no longer be enough. A touching, brave book.”
—Belinda McKeon, author of Tender

“One part war story, one part bro story, and one part road trip, Restless Souls is a wonderful debut by a talented, intelligent writer who knows how to make you think and make you feel and make you laugh. I devoured it.”
—David Ebershoff, author of The Danish Girl

“A brilliant debut from a talented young Irishman, Restless Souls is alternately comic and tragic, as three boyhood friends come to grips with the loss of innocence and the suddenly forceful presence of death in their lives.”
—Philipp Meyer, author of The Son

“A moving journey through grief, loss, war, and new beginnings for three childhood friends on the cusp of finally growing up.”—Kirkus

“Sheehan’s brand of breathless action, unsentimental depictions of love, and spot-on period touches will appeal to readers who like their narratives tinged with powerful uncertainties.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

After three years under siege in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, Tom returns home to Dublin a brittle, haunted shell of his former self, suffering from severe PTSD. Knowing they’re unqualified to help their best friend, yet determined to somehow see him through the darkness, Karl and Baz decide to take Tom on a bold journey for an unlikely cure on the other side of the world, an experimental PTSD clinic on the California coast called Restless Souls.

A darkly funny and tremendously moving meditation on friendship, grief, and the ravages of war, Restless Souls reveals the way our memories simultaneously comfort us while restricting us from growing up and moving on.

DAN SHEEHAN received his MFA from University College Dublin, and his fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous American, British, and Irish newspapers and journals, including TriQuarterly, Guernica, Electric Literature, The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, Notes From The Underground, and Icarus. He currently works as an editor at LitHub, and lives with his wife, the writer Tea Obreht, in New York.