Max Brand was a pen name for Frederick Faust who also wrote under 20 other fictional names. His output was legendary, writing an estimated 30 million words of fiction not counting motion pictures, stage, and television productions.  When it comes to the world of pulp fiction, Faust is deservedly a legend.  But he wanted much more than that. He yearned to be a classical poet.

Faust grew up in poverty in the rural San Joaquin Valley of California and was orphaned at the age of thirteen. His father, who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, was of German heritage and his mother was Irish. While at the University of California, Berkeley, where he made a name for himself as a brilliant rebel but failed to graduate, he met Dorothy Schillig, the love of his life.

The author, who was also the son-in-law of Frederick Faust, wrote that Faust "introduced old world myth into the new world West." Under the pressure of writing thousands of words every day to feed the pulp market, Faust had a heart attack at a very young age and medical problems for the rest of his life. He also had a monumental drinking problem. It didn't seem to hinder his production.  In 1925, just as an example, Faust "poured 1.2 million words onto the popular literary market, including seven novels; and sixteen sales to motion picture companies, while finishing his three-act drama in blank verse and making plans for an epic poem."  

Pursuing his interest in classic poetry, Faust and his wife moved to the Villa Negli Ulivi, in Florence, Italy, which consumed their lives until it was time to begin educating their children in the United States. They closed down the Villa in 1938 and returned to America. Faust went to Hollywood and worked for RKO, Columbia, MGM and Warner's. At Warner's he met fellow writers like Ayn Rand and James Hilton and William Faulkner.

In September, 1918 Faust had volunteered his services to the United States Army but, to his chagrin, never made it overseas before the Armistice. When America was drawn into World War II, Faust was committed to finding some way to serve. Through Warner Brothers, Faust arranged for an assignment as a war correspondent with The Infantry Journal.  He was assigned to the 88^th Infantry Division near Naples. During the battle of Santa Maria Infante in May, 1944, he suffered a shell-fragment wound to the chest and died from his wounds.  He was fifty-one years old. He was buried at the divisional cemetery in Carano and later reinterred at the Nettuno-Anzio American Cemetery. The Associated Press story reporting his death described Faust as the "King of the Pulps."