SOURCE: "'Pray without Ceasing': Annie Dillard among the Nature Writers," in Earthly Words: Essays on Contemporary American Nature and Environmental Writers, edited by John Cooley, University of Michigan Press, 1994, pp. 69-86.

In the following essay, McClintock considers Dillard's work in comparison to the genre of American environmental writing, arguing that her work is uniquely Christian in perspective.

"Sons and daughters of Thoreau abound in contemporary American writing," Edward Abbey writes in his introduction to Abbey's Road (1979), mentioning Edward Hoagland, Joseph Wood Krutch, Wendell Berry, John McPhee, Ann Zwinger, and Peter Matthiessen, as well as himself. He reserves his highest praise for Annie Dillard, who "is the true heir of the Master." The others are Thoreauvian primarily in their identification with special locales—from Central Park in Hoagland's essay to Zwinger's Rockies. Abbey's one objection to Dillard's "otherwise strong, radiant book [A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek] is the constant...