Heart in the Right Place
By:
Carolyn Jourdan
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Lowest New Price: $4.77
List Price: $14.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
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.
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Soul-searching journey told with warmth and humor - Carolyn Jourdan lived the high life as a U.S. Senate counsel in Washington, D.C. Her life takes a ninety degree turn when she fills in for her recuperating mother as the receptionist at her father's rural east Tennessee medical practice. As weeks turn into months at the clinic, Carolyn recounts with warmth and humor her soul-searching journey to reexamine her place in the world.
Customer Review: 3 out of 5
"The only way to change your splatter pattern is to change your center of gravity." - Senate staffer, smart girl, and Christian Carolyn Jourdan returns from a high power (paying "nearly $100,000 a year") job to her roots in rural Tennessee to help her doctor father, while her mother recuperates, at his small town medical practice, described as (p 177) "an icon," at which he provides excellent service to an array of colorful characters with a wide spectrum of ailments at bargain prices (not exceeding (p 150) $62 in its 40 years in existence). She explains the routine of her unpaid position as, (p 124), "Every day in this place was spent viewing the most personal and critical moments of other people's lives, but from an oddly disjointed perspective." Ms. Jourdan's memoir is an assemblage of unusual and oft-humorous stories about the local folks as remembered during a period of about a year, tales ranging from basic and benign to outlandishly embarrassing. Providing this type of personal information about patients begs the question, What about HIPAA?
Because both her mother (in pharmacology) and father have PhDs, it's no surprise that they (in their seventies at the time of the story) were able to start the practice in the first place. The amazing thing is that they kept at it for so long in spite of the difficulties and sacrifices involved in doing so. Dr. Jourdan regularly provides medical care to anyone who shows up at his office, regardless of his or her ability to pay (which involves, at times, some unique nonmonetary compensation). At first, Carolyn holds out hope of returning to continue in her more glamorous work in D.C. Ultimately, though (readers know at the outset from the dust jacket), she decides to stay in Tennessee and help her family. She describes this career change as (p 295), "I moved myself out of my favorite position as the center of the universe and decided to hang out on the sidelines for awhile." Of Dr. Jourdan and his (consisting mostly of family) staff, a patient says it best, (p 176) "Y'all are just good people."
Although I enjoyed reading: some of the stories of the every day goings-on at the office, the information about rare military vehicles and the section involving open-heart surgery, I couldn't shake the thought that there was something wrong with all that private patient information (even with names changed) made public. The memoir seemed to drag in parts (by mid-book, especially in light of the fact that readers know from the start that she decides to stay, I was ready to hand in the towel, but plodded on to the end). I found the title, which I interpreted as something like, lookatmeIhavemy Heart in the Right Place bothersome. And I was disappointed when, at a certain part later in the book, Ms. Jourdan almost entirely stopped mentioning her mother. To make up for that, an Epilogue or Afterward would have, I think, been appropriate. And who dedicates a book to over a dozen persons? Heart in the Right Place, though only so-so, tells the story of a set of super, selfless, septuagenarians. Better: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Such a love of place and people! - I just finished this and can't wait to recommend it to my friends and family... great for the armchair, the commute, or the beach!
Every page of this book is evidence of the author's love and respect for the rural life in her hometown. Due to a family emergency, she has left the fast lane of DC to return home to help out, but never mistakes that opportunity for sacrifice.
With humor that only can be wrought from intimate knowledge, she relates the large and small incidents that lead to the patients coming to her father's rural medical practice. She recounts the daily mishaps, challenges and joys with evident love and the slightly raised eyebrow of someone who has seen the larger world!
This story could easily have been both preachy and sappy, but the author's ability to enjoy the simple reality for what it is and expose us to both the meaningful and the silly saves us from this fate!
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Comparing Jourdan to Herriott and White - I would compare Jourdan's wonderful memoir to Bailey White's Mama Makes Up Her Mind. They are both anecdotal accounts of the big hearts of country/small-town people and the random events that bind their communities together. As my Texas mother says, "We know people like this!" And what a joy that we do! Jourdan's memoir also reminds me of the James Herriot books, the adventures of a rural British veterinarian and the people and animals he loves. Heart in the Right Place made my bout with pneumonia bearable; it was a breath of fresh air in my day. Hope she writes a sequel, don't you!
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Heart in the Right Place - Very prompt service. Brand new volume, trade paperback. Had a remainder mark on bottom, but just fine for local reading club! Would buy from again!
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