How High We Go in the Dark

An anthropologist, Cliff takes his adoptive daughter’s place in a Siberian dig in 2030. He goes to receive closure from Clara’s passing, as she spent the last several years moving around for work and dedicating herself to solving the world’s climate crisis. Cliff is an empathetic researcher who takes his work seriously. Having spent his younger years dedicated to his craft, he’s now attempting to balance work and his personal life more effectively. He leaves his wife and granddaughter so that he can understand Clara, but his decision to do so contributes to his being among the first to die of exposure to the Artic Plague. Only when he gains clarity about Clara’s dedication to saving the world does he grow ill, in effect dying for knowledge. As he dies, he dedicates himself to saving the world from the plague, just as Clara dedicated herself to reversing the climate crisis. Father and daughter thus mirror each other.

Cliff’s name is significant because the word cliff means a stiff rock face. It’s a sharp edge from which there’s no return—an abrupt end of one thing and the beginning of another. As the first character in the novel, Cliff symbolizes the abrupt change the world is about to face.