In yet another reference to a notable 19th-century figure, Viking's Pam Dorman made a strong preemptive bid to take a new novel she described as "a cross between, say, Laurie Colwin or Nora Ephron and Jane Austen" off the table. State of Marriage by Iowa Writers Workshop graduate Rachel Pastan is the story of a formidable Philadelphia society matron and her plans to marry off her three eligible daughters. Dorman, who said it was the best fiction she had read in an age, insisted on world rights in her buy from Henry Dunow at Dunow and Carlson and will publish in 2004, with a Penguin paperback to follow.