The Inner Circle (review)

Narrator John Milk consciously avoids sensationalizing this story of pioneer sex researcher and 1950s icon Professor Alfred C. Kinsey. At the start of Boyle's novel, the narrator's bland name clues us in to his staid persona.

Milk says he'll hold nothing back, but when it comes to the titillation of naked nights of sex research with "Prok" (Professor Kinsey), he leaves the details to the reader's imagination. Milk quickly moves from naïve student to hired help, assisting the Indiana University professor to catalog the range of human sexual behavior—work which represents (as Milk frequently reminds us) an intrepid scientific endeavor, especially in an era of sexual repression. "Anything for science" is a motto that becomes tinged with irony by novel's end.

Being "sex shy" isn't tolerated within Kinsey's inner circle; anything but open omnisexuality among the researchers and their wives undermines the project, according to Kinsey, who aims to record the sex histories of a hundred thousand subjects (he acquired a fifth of that number before a heart attack ended his life following the publication of two best-selling texts on male and female sexual behavior). The "H-scale" of homoerotic proclivity rates high among Kinsey's assistants. Willingness to sleep with Prok seems to be a prerequisite for entrance into the inner circle. Milk proceeds from sex with the boss to sex with the boss's wife. With Kinsey's consent and encouragement, his wife, Mac, provides Milk with his first experience of heterosexual lovemaking.

Milk downplays the unconventional events of the story to such a degree that when he finally gets angry at Prok for trying to sleep with his wife, the reader wonders if Milk is capable of an emotion such as jealousy. But Milk has apologized for his tone and technique early on: "You'll forgive me, I hope, because I'm a novice at this." As a memoirist, he remarks with self-deprecating candor, "Prok was the great man, not I." Boyle never clarifies Milk's grounds for his worship of Kinsey, but the bunker mentality of the inner circle, Kinsey's cultish brand of leadership and the dominating force of his personality are obvious factors.

"It was us against them," Milk explains, "the forces of inquiry and science against the treacle you heard on the radio or saw on the screen." Milk isn't fully convinced of the nobility of the project, however. Like us, he can't help feeling that sometimes Kinsey is just getting his rocks off.

Boyle's plot stems from two recent biographies of Kinsey (four Kinsey biographers are noted in the foreword). This biographical material sparked a popular revival of the iconographic sex researcher. Quick on the heels of the release of Boyle's novel, the film production of Kinsey appeared in theaters.

Boyle has taken on historical figures in his fiction before. The Road to Wellville (1994) roasts Corn Flakes inventor Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Boyle's trademark authorial voice is well-adapted to that satire. But in the hands of Milk, any satire becomes uncertain. Boyle has seldom employed the first person, excepting short stories, since Budding Prospects (1984). It's a curious choice for his new novel, given his great successes with third-person narration, as with the recent Drop City, nominated for the National Book Award. Boyle's sesquipedalian vocabulary can send even linguists scrambling for the OED, but this time around, in the voice of John Milk, Boyle's trademark style fizzles at points, overly restrained by his character. Critics praised Boyle's last novel for, among other things, presenting flesh-and-blood characters who evoke our sympathy. Boyle has opted not to skewer Kinsey, and Milk's insipid objectivity makes it tough to get a lock on Kinsey's enigmatic personality.