David is a dark complexioned somewhat baby-faced, Black male looking several years younger than his twenty three years.  He lives in a cold water flat on his own and he's kept himself to himself in the six months he's been in Harlem.  This is not because he's stand-offish though.  More because he's shy.

He has a graceful way of talking to those he has come to know, such as the Chief Librarian at the Harlem Library.  With them he seems to relax into his body instead of being a stranger in his own skin.

He dresses in reasonably well pressed suits.  He has two of them, one brown for every day and one black for Sundays and funerals.  He should keep himself straight and tall when he walks.  He's as nimble as a dancer and yet he doesn't know any of the dances that are in vogue.  He has a squint, and if he's not careful, soon he's going to need glasses.

He has been in correspondence with Hugo Gernsback of Amazing Stories and Farnsworth Wright of Weird Tales for a few months, and sold each of them a story or two, based on an imaginary Mars.  Neither editor has asked him whether he is Black, white, or Martian and David has not volunteered that information.  He'll never get rich at a penny a word but at least it'll keep the wolf from the door for a while.

David's family arrived in Nova Scotia in 1848, having been assisted along the way by the various Quakers, Liberals, Abolitionists and others who made up the Underground Railway.  He graduated from Dalhousie University with a First class honours degree at BSc in Chemistry but has been unable to complete a PhD due to a lack of funds.  Neither has he been employed as a scientist but he believes that may change as he gravitates toward Harlem eager to experience the Renaissance.  Given the state of disrepair in which Africville has fallen, Harlem seems to him almost like Shangri La in comparison.