The Inner Circle by T C Boyle (17/81)

Category: The Complete Works Of – T C Boyle

This book is a fictionalised account of the work of Dr Alfred Kinsey, the renowned sex researcher, as seen through the eyes of his assistant John Milk. Whilst Milk claims to be telling Kinsey’s story, it is more about how working for him affected Milk himself and in particular his relationship with his wife. Milk and the other characters are fictional constructs with only Kinsey and his wife being base d on real people. So this is the story of a fictional marriage set within the story of a real scientist.

I thought it sounded an interesting idea and that Kinsey would provide fascinating material, but sadly that was not the case. It started off promisingly enough and the juxtaposition of the research work (always in the name of science!) with the morality of the day and basic human urges was amusing or raised some interesting questions.

But nothing more really happened.

We saw the evolution of their work from simply interviewing students up to much more “involved” research shall we say, but the characters didn’t really evolve. Some people had some sex while research about sex. There were no deeper insights.

Very disappointing and as only the second book in my T C Boyle category, I hope the rest are better otherwise I'm in trouble!