Once there was a little boy who lived in a cupboard under the stairs. He was kept there by his cruel relatives, whom he had been sent to live with after his parents mysteriously died while he was an infant, leaving him with only a strange scar shaped like a [CENSORED] to remember them by. That little boy was Max Mellman. On his eleventh birthday, Max awoke to find an owl attempting to fly into the cupboard where he lived. Understandably, he developed a serious phobia of owls in that moment, which was reinforced when the exact same thing happened every year on his birthday. It was not until he was eighteen and had undergone serious counseling (his relatives weren't that cruel) that he was finally able to overcome his fears enough to realize that the owl was carrying a note. It was his acceptance letter to Oberlin College! Upon arriving on campus, Max discovered for the first time the magical world of men's a cappella singing. He was sorted into Obertones house, where he became a tenor, and looks forward to many exciting and ill-advised adolescent adventures at Oberlin. He has not yet realized that Marvin Krislov is secretly the ancient foe who slew his parents; but that's not revealed until the fourth book anyway.