Heart in the Right Place: A Memoir

by Carolyn Jourdan Narrated by Kate Forbes

Overview

Carolyn Jourdan spent many years as a congressional lawyer in Washington, D.C. Then she was called home to fill in for her mother as receptionist at her father's rural Tennessee doctor's office-assured it would only be for a few days. "Jourdan's dispatches from the reception desk make for a stirring, beautiful memoir that is alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, and ultimately a triumph."-Publishers Weekly, starred review

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Former U.S. Senate counsel Jourdan writes of giving up her fast-paced life in Washington to work in her father's family medical practice office in east Tennessee. "For forty years, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week," she writes, "Momma and Daddy ran a homemade, low paid 911 service for a large rural community. There was no such thing as a day off, ever." When her mother had a heart attack, leaving the front desk unmanned, Jourdan returned home to help keep the area's only doctor's office afloat while she recovered. What began as a two-day stay stretched out indefinitely, forcing Jourdan to learn to "calmly register nice people with hard jobs who routinely came in covered in hog or chicken blood." Missing Washington, she wrestles with questions of courage and loyalty, belonging and identity, and living with meaning and purpose. The demands of her new job test her, from the drama of triaging the waiting room and the tedium of negotiating the Medicare coding system to the loss of several favorite patients. In the end, she finds that she is after all her parents' daughter, possessing strength that earned her mother the nickname " Sarge," as well as her father's selfless devotion to this working-poor community. Jourdan's dispatches from the reception desk make for a stirring, beautiful memoir that is alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, and ultimately a triumph. (June)

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"This is a soul-touching memoir filled with memorable Southern characters, plus plenty of country humor, but mostly a memoir about character—the transformative power of selfless acts in forgotten places far from the spotlight."
—John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

BookPage

"[A]n absolute delight of a book: warm, funny and written with great heart and understanding."
—Howard Shirley, BookPage

Booklist

"Sometimes the greater good can best be served one person at a time. With lavish affection, genuine respect, and exuberant humor, Jourdan offers a zestfully compassionate portrait of a poor community rich in the ways of humanity."
—Booklist

Louisville Courier Journal

"Jourdan's tone is heartfelt without being preachy and frequently funny without being trite. Readers struggling to reconcile their practices with their beliefs will find Jourdan's memoir to be as much a blueprint for change as it is a satisfying recollection of one person's journey to fulfillment."

—L. Elisabeth Beattie, Louisville Courier Journal

Des Moines Register

"Heart in the Right Place provided laugh out loud humor to me while on the treadmill (although too much laughing while running can be dangerous ... ) ... I have been recommending this book to friends telling them some of the humorous anecdotes within, but it is the deeper meaning ... that will keep this story in my memory."

—Tina Ristau, Des Moines Register

From the Publisher

"[A]n absolute delight of a book: warm, funny and written with great heart and understanding."
—Howard Shirley, BookPage

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170938858
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	04/04/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

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