In Chapter 19 of Tuck Everlasting, the man in the yellow suit confronts the Tucks and shares his backstory with them and Winnie. He recounts how his grandmother told him amazing stories when he was a child. These were stories that others might think were too fanciful to be true. However, the man in the yellow suit believed them.

One particular story was about a friend of his grandmother who married into a rather odd family. After they had children, the friend realized her husband never aged. The same was true for her in-laws. It turns out that the husband of the grandmother's friend was Miles. After Miles's wife realized that there was something unnatural about the Tucks, she left them, taking her children to live with the man in the yellow suit's grandmother for a time. Miles unintentionally corroborates the story when he mentions his daughter's name, Anna.

This loose connection to the Tucks is enough to fascinate the man in the yellow suit for life. He spends years trying to learn as much as he can about immortality and track down the mysterious, never-aging family. When he overhears Mae's music box, which plays a melody well-known in his family, the man in the yellow suit knows he has finally found what he has been searching for.