Annie Dillard--the eldest of three daughters of Frank and Pam Doak--grew up in a world of country clubs, debutante parties, and private girls' schools in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father was an executive in the old family firm, American Standard, before he switched to advertising. "I had been born at the end of April 1945, on the day Hitler died; Roosevelt had died eighteen days before. My father had been 4-F in the war, because of a collapsing lung--despite his repeated and chagrined efforts to enlist. Now--five years after V-J Day--he still went out one night a week as a volunteer to the Civil Air Patrol; he searched the Pittsburgh skies for new enemy bombers. By day he worked downtown for American Standard.

"Every woman stayed alone in her house in those days, like a coin in a safe. Amy and I lived alone with our mother most of the...