The Inner Circle by T. C.T. C. Boyle writes social historical fiction often focusing on a charismatic type person (Dr. Kellogg in the Road to Wellville and Dr. Kinsey in The Inner Circle). Boyle also like to detail the collision of lifestyles (California hippies trying to survive an Alaska winter in Drop City or a yuppie couple and an illegal immigrant couple living wildly different lives in the same neighborhood, The Tortilla Curtain). In The Inner Circle Boyle imagines the collision of Kinsey’s sexual scientism with the very human and unquantifiable emotions of love and jealousy. The novel is about the arc of the marriage of John Milk, Kinsey’s first employee (fictional) and MIlk’s wife Iris. Milk is a milquetoast, totally dominated by and half in love, like the fatherless man he is, with Kinsey. Iris is an independent thinker with real character, the hero of the novel and never buys into Kinsey’s pansexual approach. She is resentful of the work, the extensive travel and the sharing required. Though, when she learns of Milk’s history with both Kinseys she engages, with Kinsey’s blessing, another member of the staff. This episode of cheating creates a conflict for Milk that he finds impossible to resolve. Milk can’t reconcile his feeling for Iris with Kinsey’s requirement that sex be seen as mechanical. Kinsey will have none of Milk’s sex shyness and he keeps the pressure on ultimately requiring his staff to perform on film in front of the entire group. Iris balks and Milk finds his spine but nearly loses Iris even as he makes a stand against the great Kinsey. It’s a simple plot but ingeniously played out against the pageant of Kinsey’s research and oppressive management style. As with all T.C. Boyle novels he educates while he entertains. Titillating as well as heartbreaking, Boyle demonstrates the dangers of listening to someone who tells us that our basest instincts are normal and acceptable. Because human biology follows the law of physics which tells us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Dr Kinsey, or Prok as he was known to his overly familiar and very hands-on inner circle was the man who lifted the covers on sex and took a good long hard look, often with the occasional poke or touch also involved. Revered and reviled by post-war American society as both a genius and a deviant he revolutionised the way people think and talk about doing “it”. This was especially significant at a time when most people wouldn’t admit to doing it, never mind thinking about it or talking about it. T.C Boyle departs from his own personal fictive style here and instead provides the narrative voice for Prok’s story via the conduit of John Milk, the earliest recruit made by Dr Sexy M.D. Milk is a fairly unlikely sexpert but he just about manages to keep his end up with Prok leading the way. This book is described as a both superb and salacious... if mark monday were reviewing it, it might end up on the shelf marked “sexy-time”. But the main problem with this book is that ultimately it manages to make sex deeply unsexy... you know how eating loses its appeal when you spend too much time cooking and thinking in infinite detail about the chemical processes that take place when you make the meal? Well the same thing happens here. Prok is an interesting character and undoubtedly ahead of his time but as is often the case, pioneering and domineering are two character traits which like to skip along merrily hand-in-hand. If it weren’t for the fact that Milk is, well, as mild as milk then you can imagine that the whole research process might have quickly unravelled. Readable but not that rewarding so I’m downgrading this from sexy-time to staying in on your own with a bar of chocolate, a bottle of Lambrini and the box set of Sex and the City.
What do You think about The Inner Circle (2004)?
I really like Boyle. I like his writing, but I hate the character of Prok. While I was reading it I would get so mad I would hurl the book away, then promptly pick it up because I wanted to know what happens next. In the book, Kinsey is a strong proponent of open sexuality and consensual sex, yet he manipulates people in to doing it. Iris believes he is blackmailing her into giving her 'history' and having sex with someone other than her husband to get her husband out of the army because he thin
—May
Good book about infamous sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, as told through his fictional first ever assistant, John Milk. It begins with John as a student in Kinsey's popular sex course at the University of Indiana at a time when sex was not discussed openly. Students are dying to take the class each year but certain members of the administration and others in the community and beyond do not approve that the course is being taught. In the book, Kinsey encourages everyone to be as open about sex as they can and seems to look down on the "sex-shy," who he views as antiquated and repressed. He prefers people to be unapologetic about their sexual preferences and desires. I do wish I wish I knew how much of it was true, though, and how much of it was based on biography. It was engrossing enough to make me seriously a contemplate a 14 mile round trip hike back to our previous campsite where I left it that morning.
—Chloe Stahl
Fiction. The memoirs of John Milk, assistant and friend to Dr. Alfred Kinsey as he develops the Institute for Sex Research. This is a fairly dry book, which is amazing considering the sheer amount of sex going on, but that's mostly the fault of Milk, our hedging, awkward narrator. Milk is just no fun, though he's got some crazy hero worship for Kinsey. Kinsey is a god to Milk, and to his other assistants, and it's creepy and fascinating and really makes me want to learn more about Kinsey and see what parts Boyle got right and what he was making up. The subject matter's engaging, even if the writing's a little flat, and I tore through it in two days.
—Punk
