NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the award–winning author of The Tortilla Curtain comes “a fascinating, fictional rendering of what life might have been like doing research for infamous sex professor Alfred Kinsey” ( Chicago Tribune ). “A biting satire of emotional manipulation, sexual indiscretion, and scientific hubris.”— The Boston Globe   A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune   In 1940, John Milk, a virginal young man, accepts a job as an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, and extraordinarily 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 are called on to participate in sexual experiments that become increasingly uninhibited—and problematic for his marriage. For in his later years, Kinsey, who behind closed doors is a sexual enthusiast of the first order, ever more recklessly pushed the boundaries both personally and professionally.   At heart a moving and compassionate look at sex, marriage, jealousy, and infidelity, The Inner Circle makes use of Alfred Kinsey’s controversial studies on human sexuality to create an irresistible tale about the interaction between our human and animal natures. "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 T. C. Boyle  is a novelist and regular contributor to  The New Yorker . His novels include  World’s End  and  The Tortilla Curtain , and he has also published numerous collections of short stories. A Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Southern California, he lives in Santa Barbara. PROLOGUE Bloomington, Indiana August 25, 1956 Looking back on it now, I don’t think I was ever actually “sex shy” (to use one of Prok’s pet phrases), but I’ll admit I was pretty naïve when I first came to him, not to mention hopelessly dull and conventional. I don’t know what he saw in me, really—or perhaps I do. If you’ll forgive me a moment of vanity, my wife, Iris, claims I was something of a heartthrob on campus, though I would have been the last to know of it because I wasn’t dating and had always been uncomfortable with the sort of small talk that leads up to the casual inquiry about after-class plans or what you might or might not be doing on Saturday after the game. I had a pretty fair physique in those days, with a matching set of fullback’s shoulders and a thirty-inch waist (I was first string on my high school team till I suffered a concussion midway through my junior season and my mother put a premature end to my career), and unlike most men at college, I was conscientious about keeping myself in trim—I still am—but that’s neither here nor there. To complete the portrait, because already I’ve managed to get myself out on a limb here, I was blessed with what Iris calls “sensitive” eyes, whatever that might mean, and a thatch of wheat-colored hair with a natural curl that defeated any cream or pomade I’d ever come across. As for sex, I was eager but inexperienced, and shy in the usual way—unsure of myself and just about as uninformed as anyone you could imagine. In fact, the first time I developed anything more than a theoretical grasp of what coitus involved—the mechanics of the act, that is—was during my senior year at IU, in the fall of 1939, when I found myself sitting in a lecture hall jammed to the rafters with silent, dry-mouthed students of both sexes as Prok’s color slides played hugely across the screen. I was there at the instigation of a girl named Laura Feeney, one of the campus femmes fatales who never seemed to go anywhere without an arm looped through some letterman’s. Laura had the reputation of being “fast,” though I can assure