The Inner Circle: A Novel
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The Inner Circle: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Michael Kramer (Narrator), T. C. Boyle (Author), Random House Audio (Publisher)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 269 ratings
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Right on the heels of his New York Times best-selling and National Book 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.
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  1. Listening Length
    15 hours and 10 minutes
  2. Author
    T. C. Boyle
  3. Narrator
    Michael Kramer
  4. Audible release date
    November 10, 2004
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Random House Audio
  7. ASIN
    B0006JM0S0
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 15 hours and 10 minutes
Author T. C. Boyle
Narrator Michael Kramer
Audible.com Release Date November 10, 2004
Publisher Random House Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B0006JM0S0
Best Sellers Rank #302,220 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#1,025 in Biographical Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)
#3,411 in Biographical Historical Fiction
#5,743 in Biographical Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
269 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Linda Linguvic
5.0 out of 5 stars Based on a real story and the mindset of the 1950's. I loved this book!
Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2013
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Lately, T. C. Boyle is becoming one of my favorite authors as I am delighted with every book of his that I read. This one, however, stands out especially well because it is based on the famous Kinsey Reports of the 1950's. Set in Indiana and beginning in the 1940's it tells the story of a young college student who starts to work for the famous Dr. Kinsey part time and winds up making this his career. How this affects him personally, his wife and his cohorts make for a fun fast read and the many references to sexual subjects makes it slightly titillating .

The research group around Dr. Kinsey was referred to as "The Inner Circle" and included Dr. Kinsey, Dr. Kinsey's wife and several men who worked for Dr. Kinsey and their wives. The men did the research and the interviews. The wives were pressured into the group because of their husband's jobs.

I really enjoyed this book and read it quickly. I loved the characters and even through the sexual parts were not explicit they were clear enough to make it all real. I also like the fact that it is based on a real story and a time and a place and a mindset that looks at the 1950's through the eyes of an historian as the book was written in 2005.

For a lightweight and interesting read I heartily recommend this book. It will certainly make you smile. .
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Andrew Calandrino
4.0 out of 5 stars Book was a bit stained and bent, but, overall a nice job.
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2022
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The book arrived, and, I can't complain for the $ I spent.
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D. A. Haines
3.0 out of 5 stars Average
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2010
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I am a huge fan of Boyle's and I thought this book lacked his usual nervy humor and it was definitely not a page turner. Although it's about Kinsey and sex sex sex it actually got sort of redundant and boring. With Boyle's unigue talents I would think he'd be one of the last writers in the world who could make sex boring, but perhaps he was just being faithful to his subject. I was really disappointed.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars It's not about the sex
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2017
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TC Boyle writes about issues so the plot is kind of secondary but everything else is vividly told and there is a certain uniqueness that drives me to continue to read all his books.
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andrew review
4.0 out of 5 stars Such an Excellent Writer
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2015
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I hadn't read a book by Boyle for years( the last one I read was East by East) but I always thought that his Road to Wellville was one of the most entertaining books I have ever read. So I thought I would revisit Boyle. I'm glad I did. I had forgotten what a pleasure it was to just read his writing. Clear, beautiful, moving ,sexy , and funny are just some of the words I'd use to describe the way he writes. In this book I found the subject fascinating and while I don't know if the whole thing hung together perfectly, it was still an enjoyable trip.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Condition, hard to find book
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2018
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good quality book that is hard to find
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars OMG!
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2019
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Incredibly powerful, well written book. Very sexually graphic, perhaps too much so. Professor Kinsey believed thoroughly in his work and does anything and everything imaginable to do so. Families are everything and science trumps all. Too explicit and drawn out.
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Alex Pieske
5.0 out of 5 stars great book
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2012
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My favorite TC Boyle book. Every person I recommended it to has loved it. Kinsey is a fascinating character and a perfect subject for Boyle.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars His storytelling from the perspective of an assistant or researcher to a great man for example Frank Lloyd Wright is highly successful ...
Reviewed in Australia on May 5, 2017
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Another TC Boyle triumph of a book. His storytelling from the perspective of an assistant or researcher to a great man for example Frank Lloyd Wright is highly successful and impossible to put down. I love his empathy for characters and have read most of his books a couple of times.
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jambal
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2014
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This novel was presented to me as, "TC Boyle's least favourable novel" so, naturally, I didn't have game-changing expectations.

(For the record, 'Worlds End', 'Drop City' and 'East For East' are among my favourite books, ever.)

'The Inner Circle' IS a game-changer. It did deserve high expectations, because it shatters them. It breaks them down and it bloody delivers. It deserves to have high expectations and hype, because it lives up to them and it exceeds them.

This novel is the fictional tale of a very factual man. And, of course, sex. It is packed full of sex and the scientific terminology is addictive. All of it is addictive, and I admit, I have started Alfred Kinsey's repertoire. Beginning with 'Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male'. I am excited about his work. I am itching to ~know. It's difficult to explain.

Boyle's incarnation of Prok (Professor Kinsey) is stunning. Absolutely breathtaking. And John Milk. John Milk is now on my list of 'most favourite fictional characters'. He is inevitably damaged. That progression is equal parts heartbreaking and gorgeous to read.
Prok and Milk's relationship is complicated and simple. Sexual and fraternal. It is captivating.
In fact, all of the relationships in this novel are enthralling.

This novel has rendered me incoherent and I cannot recommend it enough.

Just read it. No embellishments. No expectations. Read it.

And lose yourself in their world. It is utterly hypnotising.
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buenlimon
5.0 out of 5 stars Was für eine unglaublich große Arbeit
Reviewed in Germany on July 14, 2013
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Dieses ist ein Roman, also Fiktion. Dennoch soll sie angeblich sehr nahe an der Wahrheit liegen. Es geht hier um die "Kinsey-Repors", zu Deutsch die Bücher "Das sexuelle Verhalten des Mannes" und "Das sexuelle Verhalten der Frau", zwei wissenschaftliche Werke, die beschreiben, welches Verhalten, der durchschnittliche Mensch so vor den Tag legt. Als diese Bücher in den 1940-50er Jahre veröffentlich wurden, waren sie der Skandal schlechthin. Man kommt nicht darum, zuzugeben, dass die Forschungsarbeit, die zu den Reports geführt hat, sehr groß und sehr gründlich gemacht wurde. In meiner Kindheit und Jugend (die ja auch jetzt 50 Jahre zurückliegen), waren die Kinseyreports immer noch ein Skandal und man weigerte sich allgemein zuzugeben, dass der ganz normale Otto Normalverbraucher bisexuell ist und in 50% seine Frau betrügt und so weiter. Nun, dieses Buch hier beschreibt die Forschungsarbeit, die zu Veröffentlichung der Bücher geführt hat. Damals gab es keine Computer. Es gab nur wenige Autos, und sie waren sehr teuer. Es war der 2. Weltkrieg. Kinsey wurde im prüden Amerika nicht überall gerne gesehen. Man muss sich den jungen Forscher vorstellen, wie er im Winter mit Frost im Haar in seinem unbeheizten Schlafzimmer aufwacht, und am Tag mit einem Bleistift dazu beiträgt, 20000 (zwanzig tausend) Frageformulare ausgefüllt zu bekommen, wo die Leute über ihre aller intimsten Geheimnisse ausgefragt wurden. Es ist ein unglaubliches Buch. Es beschreibt das Privatleben, in allen Einzelheiten, auf Gut und Böse, der eisernen Wissenschaftler, die diese revolutionierende Forschungsarbeit fertig gebracht haben. Es ist in einem sehr gut lesbaren Englisch geschrieben, der Text fließt leicht und verständlich dahin. Das Buch liest sich wie ein Roman. Man lernt Kinsey und seine Assistenten kennen, die Zeit, und die Atmosphäre überhaupt, sowie Amerika zu der Zeit. Eine klare Empfehlung meinerseits.
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Sam Quixote
4.0 out of 5 stars The Birth of the Free Love Movement
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 5, 2012
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The work of Alfred Kinsey is explored through a fictitious narrator, John Milk, who is there for the first lecture Kinsey gives on sex and soon after becomes involved in the sex research that will form Kinsey's legacy and change the world. But life in the inner circle is far different from the life presented to the media...

T.C. Boyle's novel is an excellent look into one of the 20th century's most interesting and important thinkers/scientists, someone who brought sex from the shadows and shame and into popular culture. It's no coincidence that the two books "Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male/Female" came out just before the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

Kinsey is a fascinating figure himself, a kind of forward thinker who believes all sex is natural whatever your inclination and practices what he preaches. Where the book becomes interesting is in the tangled web of interconnecting relationships between all of the characters who sexually share themselves and their partners among one another leading to devastated feelings and the limits of the sex research and Kinsey's philosophy of free love which fails to take into account real love, just physical sex.

The inner circle resembles a cult almost with Kinsey as the leader and his "followers" doing his bidding, worshipping his strong personality and mission of bringing sex out into the open. It's ironic because Kinsey is so anti-religion and yet he expects complete fealty to his cause and his beliefs without question from his followers. But his utter single mindedness in his pursuit would lead to an early grave and leave a kind of darkness and hollowness to the people in his life after all he put them through.

The novel is a fantastic read with Boyle taking you right there into the times, personifying Kinsey perfectly and giving the reader a clear and vivid picture of the times and the impact his work had on society at the time. The reader also comes away with an understanding of how Kinsey went about collecting the data via interviews and later filmed recordings.

Where the novel fails is in its length - I felt that at just over 400 pages it went on a bit too long. The focus on the imaginary narrator became a bit dull especially when the book's main subject is Kinsey and the story should have stayed on him more than meandering away. Also, this is a book where not much happens. That didn't bother me as I didn't expect much to happen (it's not that kind of story, more of a character portrait) though it could bother some people who might be looking for a novel with lots of twists and turns - this isn't that book.

Besides that, this is a brilliant novel of an important and interesting figure of 20th century history who is brought to life with the expert skill of master writer TC Boyle. Fans of Boyle will enjoy this book while those seeking an idea of who Kinsey was but don't wish to trudge through a dry non-fiction book will find "The Inner Circle" suits their needs. An excellent read, Boyle proves once again his exorbitant ability in the written form outshines many of his contemporaries - definitely worth a look.
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MPDD
5.0 out of 5 stars There is not much to add to Donna Seaman's review
Reviewed in Germany on February 23, 2007
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I completely agree with Seaman's review so my evaluation has mainly the purpose of adding 5 well deserved stars to the book's record. To add at least some thoughts of my own I'd like to give a bit of a warning: the book gets tedious toward the end as the description of the research by Prok and his team repeats itself over and over. I tend to appreciate this as a literary means to convey the tediousness of the work described. Apart from that Boyle gives gripping insights into the emotional and rational workings inside the "inner circle". As Seaman says he actually tells the tale of any zealot and his followers. Great work.
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