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Shop nowThe Inner Circle
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Learn moreSummary
Right on the heels of his New York Times bestselling and National Award-nominated novel, Drop City, T.C. Boyle has crafted an even more captivating tale with memorable characters and a rollicking plot that will delight both his longtime devotees and a legion of new fans.
The Inner Circle is a love story narrated by John Milk, a virginal young man who in 1940 accepts a job as an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, a 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 (a sexual enthusiast of the first order) pushed the boundaries both personally and professionally.
Reviews
"Kinsey is in some ways a perfect subject for this sly and intrepid novelist…while Boyle is fascinated by the zealous energy of perfectionists like Kinsey, he is at bottom a defender of romance against the tyranny of reason.” —The New York Times Book Review“The Inner Circle may draw readers because of its sexy subject matter, but they will stay for the emotional punch of Boyle’s meditations on love, marriage, and jealousy.” —The San Francisco Chronicle
“Terrific…Kinsey looms as one of the most wonderfully repellent figures in recent literature, but Circle’s hero is smart, commonsensical Iris, who understands that Kinsey’s mechanistic views of sex fails to account for love, jealousy, and human nature.” —Entertainment Weekly
“The Inner Circle is a harrowing depiction of how questionable are some of the consequences of sexual liberation…that the novel is a page-turner, with lots of sex in it, only serves Boyle’s purpose all the better.” —The Washington Post
“Compelling and subtly humorous…a biting satire of emotional manipulation, sexual indiscretion, and scientific hubris.” —The Boston Globe
"The Inner Circle never lets you tear your eyes from the page." —The Washington Post Book World
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