Add to ORKGThe Cliff is a novel whose setting is a cliff, on the central coastline of California in the year, I898. The cliff is the site of an abandoned, limestone mining operation. The principal characters in the story are: Amy Braddock, a thirty-five-year-old widow: Jason Braddock, her eleven-year-old son; and Prophet, a black man, a stranger, and an alleged friend of the deceased father's. Prophet is a mysterious person who arrives one day on foot, with nothing but the clothes on his back and what he calls a "spirit stick" in his hand. The stick appears to be a totem of some sort, possessed of magical powers. The first two chapters we see here are concerned with Prophet's attempts to win a place for himself in the family and his initial efforts to...