Brown was born in Invercargill, New Zealand, and educated in Melbourne, Australia. He worked as a journalist in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, as well as in country towns in N.S.W. and W.A. At one stage, he worked on the Melbourne Argus with fellow journalist and famous Australian novelist-to-be George Johnston, whose tumultuous marriage with writer Charmian Clift would be the subject of Brown's last book. He also worked as a teacher, fitter and turner, wharf labourer and film publicist. He served in the Royal Australian Air Force during the Second World War and used his severance pay to write Australian Son, a highly regarded and sympathetic biography of bushrangerNed Kelly.[1]
After publishing Australian Son in 1948, Brown went on to write a number of other books, several dealing with aboriginal themes. His 1966 novel, The Jimberi Track, tells the tale of harassment by white settlers and miners experienced by various aboriginal tribal peoples, including the WongaisinSouth Australia and Western Australia after World War II. He also published The Black Eureka, an account of the 1946 Pilbara strikebyAboriginal and part-Aboriginal stockmen[2] in the Pilbara, an iconic story in Aboriginal/European race relations which was also retold by Brown's friend,[3] the author Donald Stuart in his award-winning novel Yandy.
Towards the end of his life, Max Brown revised his first work, Australian Son, and the updated edition was published posthumously after careful research into Brown's papers and manuscript by his friend Chester Eagle.[4] He died in Ballarat in September, 2003.
