In which it's that time again

What is purple prose? I just saw it again in a Time article about someone sending a purple prosed campaign email to raise money for his campaign--it sounded like any other campaign letter or email... if one doesn't contribute, then the evil awful other candidate will have his way etc ---not exactly melodramatic, but highly emphasized and a little bit trying to scare you into taking action --It didn't sound like Mary Stewart or Victoria Holt particularly. So because a lot of the books I read in my teens and later were called purple prose, I liked to know what it's supposed to be.

How long has the March family been naming children after Shakespeare characters? What inspiration will they use when they run out of names?

And something totally weird: what kind of green are the "March eyes"? Emerald green, sea green, gray-green? :)

Thanks, Deanna! I am counting the days until "Dark Road to Darjeeling is released.

-Melissa

I read the interview about lack of serious reviews of most women writers on the Huffington Post and have been thinking of what to write as a comment, and my point of view about it, and had tons of questions that came to mind, both for them and you --which escapes me right now, but my write them in later
I would like to know how you feel about things like the New York Times Book Review or even Mystery Scene and The Strand --which I get--at least right now--seem only review women writers who seem to resemble more the men mystery writers--I've taken to buying Romantic Times etc as it reviews books that aren't so "noir" ?--maybe---
I still get Publisher's Weekly, but used to get Booklist and Kirkus Review,(before the economy tanked) because they really cover such a broader range of books and give much fairer reviews---NYTimes BR once in awhile would mention the Ameilia Peabody books in a crime round up,and maybe Patricia Cornwall in later years and if they ever mentioned Mary Stewart, it was to call her writing "purple prose" whatever that means, and only condescended to consider her Merlin Trilogy (?) as writing maybe and do not know if they ever reviewed Victoria Holt---Was it a conceit after WW II? REBECCA and Daphne Du Maurier was considered a classic when I was growing up, but no woman writer of similar novels were who wrote after WW II--It was considered de riguer for men to write endless sex (I'm thinking particularly of listening to Norman Mailer's last book on the early life of Hitler which was the last of the writer's often reviewed by the Book Review that were of my era that i've listened to or read lately--and that was a tour de force) yet females who wrote romance was considered "purple prose" yet many of our old classics written by men, if they included romance, were "romantic" ---
Just remembered a question I wanted to ask you--Did you see the performance of SOUTH PACIFIC on PBS the other night live from Lincoln Center--I really would be curious of what you thought---My neighbor's daughter, who is also a friend of mine, works at our local PBS channel, so she reminds me of the, and I ended up watching most of it--However, I was born in 1945 and grew up on the Mary Martin-Ezio Pinza record from the Broadway show, and then Mitzi Gaynor-Rossano Brazzi movie and record, and all I could say to myself was that that production reminded me of SOUTH PACIFICA via MISS SAIGON--I replayed MITZI and ROSSANO'S version the other day, and what hit me was, we hadn't fought a war in South East Asia yet where some of the South East Asians had become our enemy---to me, there was a lot of anger in this new production, and the love affair with Liat and Cable was treated more like an RR from Nom and kind of tawdry---But this might be what the production was targeting--the old WW II movies we used to see when I was young had an esprit de corps and a sense of humor to keep moral up ---this production seemed much more of an era of limited war fare and disillusionment ---Am wondering if you saw it and your take---maybe I'm too used to the old movie etc this is too long looking forward to the 5th Julia--by the way--I think it was Publisher's Weekly or one of those magazines that I first saw the ad for SILENT IN THE GRAVE--I think--correct me if I'm wrong