Heart in the Right Place | 
 enlarge | Author: Carolyn Jourdan
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $6.45
You Save: $8.50 (57%)
New (27) Used (14) from $4.98
Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 25081
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 1565126130
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9781565126138
ASIN: 1565126130
Publication Date: August 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Carolyn Jourdan, an attorney on Capitol Hill, thought she had it made. But when her mother has a heart attack, she returns home—to the Tennessee mountains, where her father is a country doctor and her mother works as his receptionist. Jourdan offers to fill in for her mother until she gets better. But days turn into weeks as she trades her suits for scrubs and finds herself following hazmat regulations for cleaning up bodily fluids; maintaining composure when confronted with a splinter the size of a steak knife; and tending to the loquacious Miss Hiawatha, whose daily doctor visits are never billed. Most important, though, she comes to understand what her caring and patient father means to her close-knit community.
With great humor and great tenderness, Heart in the Right Place shows that some of our biggest heroes are the ones living right beside us.
Book Description
"This is a wonderful book. I would have enjoyed it even if Carolyn wasn't a neighbor of mine in East Tennessee. She is a great writer."
?Dolly Parton, Singer, Songwriter, and Actress
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 A perfectly beautiful story of gentle spirit, and ultimately joy October 27, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I hardly know where to begin. This is a beautiful story of a loving family and a very special community. It is a story of a woman who finds her truest self.
Carolyn Jourdan was a high profile attorney who worked on Capitol Hill. She drove a Mercedes, and had a high profile circle of friends. She knew all of the important people, and they knew her.
A family emergency sent her back to the hills of Tennessee, for a few days. It wasn't easy. She missed her place in DC from almost the first moment she was away. Her best friend was there. Her life and work were there. She was somebody there...or was she.
As the days and then weeks passed, far longer than she had expected or planned, Carolyn began to see things just a little differently. She had always wanted to help others, but had seen it more as a grand scheme. Helping many at one time. Making a difference . But is is more important to make a difference to many people at one time than it is to do so one by one. That was a conundrum she had trouble solving.
I loved each and every one of the people I met in this book. There were tears in my eyes more than once. A story filled with compassion, love and faith that will have a firm place on my small self of books that are to be read again and again.
 You can go home again October 15, 2008
Carolyn Jourdan thought she had left her hometown of Strawberry Plains, Tenn. in her rear view mirror. When her mother has a heart attack, Jourdan leaves a job as a high profile attorney in Washington, D.C., to care for her mom and help her dad at his small medical office.
Jourdan's warm memoir, "Heart in the Right Place," chronicles her experiences at the front desk of her father's office and the adjustments she makes to life in a small town.
The book has gathered a basket full of honors, including "A Best Book Club of 2007-2008" by Book Sense, "A Best Book of 2007-2008" by The Literary Guild and "A 2008 Top Summer Read" by The New York Public Library.
Jourdan's opening chapter spotlights her quick wit and sharp sense of humor as she recounts her first day on the job.
As I unlocked the front door of the office I could hear the phone ringing. I hurried inside and stretched across the reception desk to answer it.
"Dr. Jourdan's office," I said, out of breath."
"Do y'all wash out feet?" a woman shouted.
... "Excuse me?"
"Wash out feet! Do y'all wash out feet?"
"I ... I don't know." I sent up a silent prayer that we did not.
"Well she needs her foot washed out! How much do y'all charge for that?"
Jourdan's easy writing style moves the story right along. She makes you care about her mother's rehabilitation, her father's heavy workload and the health and well-being of the patients that cross her path.
Her stories prove that people in small towns all across this country care about one another enough to make significant sacrifices. And that's a good thing.
Enjoy!
Heartwarming October 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A wonderful and humorous story about a daughter who returns from a high powered position in the United States Congress to be the receptionist for her father's country physician office. The cast of characters and their many illnesses, real and imagined, provide wonderful insight into the human condition. You will laugh at the antics of the country patients, friends and even the animals that Carolyn's daddy treats in his small town Smokey Mountain office. Carolyn Jourdan recounts it all with humor, pathos and spirituality. Don't miss this one!
A Bit Overdone But Still Entertaining September 27, 2008
Why would a high powered Senate lawyer suddenly decide to become a country doctor's receptionist? Because her family asked her to. Carolyn Jourdan's 70 something mother who normally does the job for Carolyn's father, the small rural area's only doctor, has had a heart attack and family duty brings Carolyn to the rescue "for a few days". This delightful memoir tells us all what it's like to escape a life only to be dragged back in--and finding it much more fulfilling the second time around. Full of anecdotes about life in a country doc's office (where you can keep someone from dying AND x-ray a miniature goat in the same day) we can delight in the complicated simplicity of life East Tennessee through the eyes of one of is very own daughters. This book is hilarious, touching, and above all, honest.
 wholly lacking August 29, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
You can zip through this in the bookstore. Wholly lacking in character development and spiritual depth.
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