The Inner Circle (T. C. Boyle novel)

For other uses, see Inner circle (disambiguation).

The Inner Circle
US edition cover
Author	T. C. Boyle
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Viking Press
Publication date	9 September 2004
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	418 pp.
ISBN	0-670-03344-8
OCLC	53972124
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 22
LC Class	PS3552.O932 I56 2004

The Inner Circle is a novel by T. C. Boyle first published in 2004 about the development of sexology in the United States and about Alfred Kinsey's rise to fame during the late 1940s and early 1950s as seen through the eyes of one of his loyal assistants.

This assistant, however, John Milk, is a fictional character rather than a historical person. Boyle makes it unmistakably clear in the "Author’s Note" that The Inner Circle "is a work of fiction, and [that] all characters and situations have been invented, with the exception of the historical figures of Alfred C. Kinsey and his wife, Clara Bracken (McMillen) Kinsey".

Plot introduction

The Inner Circle revolves around the tensions that are bound to arise if a small group of people deliberately abandons the traditional moral values with which they were raised in favour of an unconventional outlook on love, marriage and sex. While Kinsey preaches that sex is nothing but a "hormonal function" devoid of emotion, John Milk has extreme difficulty adjusting to this concept where his own wife — the young and beautiful Iris — is concerned.

Plot summary

Milk's sexual coming of age starts in 1939 when he is a student at Indiana University in Bloomington and attends Kinsey’s “marriage course”, a lecture in which the renowned zoologist propounds his theories and his plans for the first time in front of a large audience. Still a virgin, he makes Kinsey’s acquaintance when the latter interviews him in order to take his “sex history”. Kinsey makes Milk his personal assistant despite his inexperience, but he turns out to be a quick learner, and thus the young man becomes the first member of what will be “the inner circle”: a handful of men (and, up to a point, also their wives) who furiously collaborate under Kinsey’s dictatorial rule towards the publication of the two volumes later referred to as the Kinsey Report.

Characters in The Inner Circle

Alfred Kinsey – Professor conducting studies of sex at college Milk attends
Clara Bracken Kinsey – Alfred's wife
John Milk – Kinsey's assistant and protagonist
Iris Milk – John's wife

Literary significance and criticism

While the novel garnered generally favorable reviews, some reviewers and readers consider The Inner Circle to be one of Boyle’s lesser novels. The criticisms generally cite slow-moving and somewhat predictable plotting, as well as an overly-linear storyline.

The German translation of the novel bears the more lurid title Dr. Sex.

Book information

The Inner Circle by T. C. Boyle

Hardcover – ISBN 0-670-03344-8 (2004, First edition) published by Viking Press
Paperback – ISBN 0-14-303586-X (2005) published by Penguin Books

External links

T.C. Boyle official web site

Works by T. C. Boyle

Novels	Water Music Budding Prospects World's End East Is East The Road to Wellville The Tortilla Curtain Riven Rock A Friend of the Earth Drop City The Inner Circle Talk Talk The Women When the Killing's Done San Miguel The Harder They Come

Short story collections	Descent of Man Greasy Lake If the River Was Whiskey Without a Hero T.C. Boyle Stories After the Plague Tooth and Claw The Human Fly

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