The Science of Sex: T. C. Boyle on his Inner Circle, Alfred Kinsey, and the Fine Line Between Fact and Fiction

Abstract

In an interview following the publication of The Inner Circle, T. Coraghessan Boyle's 2004 novel about Alfred C. Kinsey, the novelist discusses his book's semihistorical 1940s/1950s background of the Kinsey research team and compares the novel's themes with his other fictionalizations of U.S. historical figures. Boyle considers the dramatic aspects of Kinsey's bisexuality, and how his public image as detached purveyor of scientific knowledge about sex may have conflicted with his private taboo and experimental bisexual behavior. Professor Boyle has been a member of the English Department at the University of Southern California since 1978, and his work, including 19 books of fiction, has been translated into more than two dozen foreign languages. The article, reprinted from L.A. Weekly (Sept. 3–9, 2004), was retrieved August 1, 2007 from http://tcboyle.com/page2.html?4.