Synopses & Reviews
Dr. Alfred Kinsey and T.C. Boyle two great American originals together at last.
Fresh on the heels of his New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-nominated novel, Drop City, T.C. Boyle has spun an even more dazzling tale that will delight both his longtime devotees and a legion of new fans. Boyle's tenth novel, The Inner Circle has it all: fabulous characters, a rollicking plot, and more sex than pioneering researcher Dr. Alfred Kinsey ever dreamed of documenting...well, almost.
A love story, The Inner Circle is narrated by John Milk, a virginal young man who in 1940 accepts a job as an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, an extraordinarily charming professor of zoology at Indiana University who has just discovered his life's true calling: sex. As a member of Kinsey's "inner circle" of researchers, Milk (and his beautiful new wife) is called on to participate in sexual experiments that become increasingly uninhibited and problematic for his marriage. For in his later years Kinsey (who behind closed doors is a sexual enthusiast of the first order) ever more recklessly pushed the boundaries both personally and professionally.
While Boyle doesn't resist making the most of this delicious material, The Inner Circle is at heart a very moving and very loving look at sex, marriage, and jealousy that will have readers everywhere reassessing their own relationships because, in the end, "love is all there is."
Review
"Boyle's vision of Kinsey as both genius and cult leader is mesmerizing and chilling....Strong medicine from a phenomenally artistic, morally inquisitive, and unfailingly compassionate writer." Booklist
Review
"Much of this is dizzyingly readable, and Boyle is a past master at transforming scrupulously researched material into crisply funny scenes....A great subject imperfectly tamed and controlled. Well worth reading, but not Boyle's best." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"This novel considers the conflict between our animal instincts and our human emotions...and is at once titillating and maddening. Readers everywhere will take a closer look at their own sex lives. Highly recommended." Library Journal
Review
"For all its historical detail, The Inner Circle has a blurry, hasty, unfinished quality....[Kinsey's] real-life celebrity overshadows Milk's fictitious marriage, which is where the book's delicate, true heartbeat lies." A. O. Scott, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"In the 1940s and 50s, Dr Alfred Kinsey published the first ever American bestsellers on the subject of sex: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and its sequel Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Some fifty years later, T. C. Boyle's hugely satisfying tenth novel takes a long hard look into the process behind Kinsey's controversial investigations. And in doing so, he offers his own forensic examination as all novelists should of the behaviour of the 'human animal' itself." Stephen Abell, The Times Literary Supplement (read the entire Times Literary Supplement review)
Synopsis
Fresh on the heels of his New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-nominated novel, Drop City, T.C. Boyle has spun an even more dazzling tale that will delight both his longtime devotees and a legion of new fans. Boyle’s tenth novel, The Inner Circle has it all: fabulous characters, a rollicking plot, and more sex than pioneering researcher Dr. Alfred Kinsey ever dreamed of documenting . . . well, almost.
A love story, The Inner Circle is narrated by John Milk, a virginal young man who in 1940 accepts a job as an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, an extraordinarily charming professor of zoology at Indiana University who has just discovered hislife’s true calling: sex. As a member of Kinsey’s “inner circle” of researchers, Milk (and his beautiful new wife) is called on to participate in sexual experiments that become increasingly uninhibited—and problematic for his marriage. For in his later years Kinsey (who behind closed doors is a sexual enthusiast of the first order) ever more recklessly pushed the boundaries both personally and professionally.
While Boyle doesn’t resist making the most of this delicious material, The Inner Circle is at heart a very moving and very loving look at sex, marriage, and jealousy that will have readers everywhere reassessing their own relationships—because, in the end, “love is all there is.”
Synopsis
Fresh on the heels of his New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-nominated novel, Drop City, T.C. Boyle has spun an even more dazzling tale that will delight both his longtime devotees and a legion of new fans. Boyle’s tenth novel, The Inner Circle has it all: fabulous characters, a rollicking plot, and more sex than pioneering researcher Dr. Alfred Kinsey ever dreamed of documenting . . . well, almost.
A love story, The Inner Circle is narrated by John Milk, a virginal young man who in 1940 accepts a job as an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, an extraordinarily charming professor of zoology at Indiana University who has just discovered hislife’s true calling: sex. As a member of Kinsey’s “inner circle” of researchers, Milk (and his beautiful new wife) is called on to participate in sexual experiments that become increasingly uninhibited—and problematic for his marriage. For in his later years Kinsey (who behind closed doors is a sexual enthusiast of the first order) ever more recklessly pushed the boundaries both personally and professionally.
While Boyle doesn’t resist making the most of this delicious material, The Inner Circle is at heart a very moving and very loving look at sex, marriage, and jealousy that will have readers everywhere reassessing their own relationships—because, in the end, “love is all there is.”
About the Author
T.C. Boyle has written nine novels and has published six collections of short fiction. He received the PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel World's End and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. His stories appear regularly in The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, and Playboy.