Jonathan Gathornehardy

Trouble at the sex factory

issue 05 March 2005

I should perhaps declare, not an interest quite, or at least not only an interest, but an expertise. Ten years ago I spent seven months in Bloomington, Indiana researching a biography of Alfred C. Kinsey, the pioneer entomologist and sex researcher. The book appeared in 1998. T. C. Boyle has had the bright idea of writing a novel based on ‘Prok’, as Kinsey was called, and his ‘inner circle’: ‘Mac’ his wife, and his three assistants and their wives.

A bright idea fortuitously, since his novel is able to coincide with the film Kinsey starring Liam Neeson and just out. But bright also because it is in fact a dramatic and extraordinary story and there is of course a good deal of sex — handled by Boyle expertly and graphically enough, though, if I were Prok, I’d guess he isn’t all that keen on gay sex.

He follows the history quite closely.

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