Word: messalina
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...falls in love with an agoraphobic library assistant, Tissy, a delicate, nervous creature whom he hopes to nurse to a normal life. Abetted by her mother, a "Messalina of the suburbs," Tissy turns out to harbor the tyrannical selfishness of the very weak. Their marriage is a fiasco. Lewis falls under the spell of Emmy, a passionate and extraverted actress who is the opposite of his wife in every way except relentless self-absorption. Although he resists Emmy's advances, his wife leaves him anyway. He drifts passively through decades of wistful misery, unable to attain pleasure or please others...