And although that doesn't actually tell you very much about him, it tells you a lot more than the "illegal maritime arrival" description designed entirely to dehumanize him.
But the puzzle of "North River" is that it reads like the kind of first novel you would expect from a journalist, in which observation and eye for detail and reportage have been replaced by sentimentality and dead-on-arrival descriptions.
All closings were accredited to the championship bout in Shelby, Tells how the money was raised in a town with a population of 1000 souls, the unpopularity of Dempsey, an alleged draft-dodger; his arrival and departure; description of the fight; and how Kearns managed to get out of town with the cash.
Sounds of railway engines accompany oral descriptions of the arrival of the Europeans, and the story of the Dutchman Jan Peek, for whom the town is named.
Description of his arrival in Oklahoma - the heat, the school he was taken to, the adults who ran the school.
"Occasionally, as in his description of his arrival at rehab, Gill's prose is direct and affecting..
Occasionally, as in his description of his arrival at rehab, Gill's prose is direct and affecting: "I was 30.
Or take this description of the arrival of the rainy season: "On the savannah, the seasons begin and end with rains.
"To Siberia" has a tremendous description of the arrival of German troops in a Danish town: "Jesper braked, got off his bike, and squatted down to listen.
That morning, Cabinet secretaries, assembled for a meeting in the Cabinet Room, had been passing the time before the President's arrival by bantering about which description of the President that had leaked to the press was the most accurate.
Jaffrey's description of the arrival of a man called the khomcha-wallah for Saturday tea ("akin to telling a Western child that he could have a whole candy shop for the entire afternoon") is devastatingly delicious.
