PRESS RELEASE: Author Paul Rushworth-Brown Joins The Chris Voss Show Live from Las Vegas to Discuss the Novel Shaking Up Australia’s Colonial Narrative

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – 7 July 2025 — In an era when truth-telling is no longer optional but essential, award-nominated historical fiction author Paul Rushworth-Brown is bringing one of Australia’s most urgent conversations to a global audience. His latest novel, Outback Odyssey, is a visceral, haunting journey into the country’s colonial legacy — and on Global Forgiveness Day, it’s being recognised as more than just a story. It’s a reckoning.

On 15 July (AEST) / 14 July (PDT), Rushworth-Brown joins The Chris Voss Show, broadcasting live from Las Vegas, to discuss the book that’s igniting discussion — and discomfort — on both sides of the Pacific.

“Outback Odyssey isn’t a safe book,” says Rushworth-Brown. “It’s raw, unapologetic, and rooted in stories we’ve been too polite to tell. Forgiveness can’t happen until we face the past honestly — this book is my way of contributing to that process.”

Lived Experience and Family Legacy
Though fictional, Outback Odyssey is grounded in the real. Rushworth-Brown has worked as a navvy in outback Queensland, replacing railway track beneath the searing sun. He has slept beside red-dirt roads in Arnhem Land and shared fireside stories with Aboriginal stockmen in the bush.

The protagonist, Jimmy, is loosely based on Rushworth-Brown’s own father, a young British migrant who came to Australia in the 1950s. Like Jimmy, he arrived with nothing, endured the indifference of the land, and was changed by it forever.

“This story is part of my own legacy,” Rushworth-Brown says. “I didn’t just research this life — I witnessed it.”

A Story of Adventure and Allegory
At face value, Outback Odyssey is an outback adventure with a touch of romance. But beneath the surface lies an allegorical narrative — a powerful metaphor for Australia’s long, unfinished journey toward truth and reconciliation. Jimmy’s transformation from outsider to initiated survivor mirrors the moral reckoning the nation still resists.

“It’s not just a story about a young man surviving the bush,” Rushworth-Brown says. “It’s about what it means to belong — to land, to people, to history — and the cost of getting that wrong.”

The Land as a Character
In Outback Odyssey, the land is not just a setting — it’s a living, breathing presence. A character in its own right. It humbles, teaches, protects, and punishes. It remembers what others would rather forget.

Not Like Other Australian Novels
Unlike many traditional Australian novels that romanticise the bush or centre white settler heroism, Outback Odyssey dismantles the myth. It doesn’t glorify colonial conquest — it questions it. It doesn’t erase First Nations presence — it places it at the spiritual centre of the story.

“This isn’t another bushman yarn,” Rushworth-Brown says. “It’s about listening to the land — and to the people who were here first.”

Controversy and Courage
Not all responses have been comfortable. Some have questioned whether a white, British-born Australian should tell this story at all.

“I didn’t write Outback Odyssey to speak for Aboriginal people,” Rushworth-Brown explains. “I wrote it to reckon with the legacy people like me inherited. I didn’t lead — I listened. This book is about what I heard.”

It’s the kind of novel that — had it been published 50 years ago — may have been banned. Even today, it presses against the edges of what some Australians are willing to hear.

A Story Australia Is Still Struggling to Hear
As Amanda Smith wrote in a recent reflection:

“Outback Odyssey reminds us that forgiveness starts with story — with the courage to tell it, and the courage to hear it, even when it stings.

It’s the kind of novel that lingers — visceral, timely, and unflinching. If there’s any justice in the literary world, this book will become a classic.”

And it lands at a time when that courage seems in short supply.

From the failure of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, to the public heckling of a Welcome to Country at the ANZAC Day service in Melbourne, recent events reveal just how divided Australia remains when it comes to acknowledging First Nations truth.

“There’s a discomfort in this country around listening,” Rushworth-Brown says. “We say we want reconciliation, but we balk when truth walks into the room. That’s why this story resonates — especially overseas. The story isn’t just about Jimmy. It’s about a nation still lost in the wild.”

🎙️ EVENT DETAILS:
Paul Rushworth-Brown on The Chris Voss Show
📍 Live from Las Vegas
🗓 Monday, July 14 (PDT) / Tuesday, July 15 (AEST)
🕠 5:30 PM PDT / 10:30 AM AEST

📣 What happens when a bold book hits a bold platform? You get real conversation.

🔗 Purchase the Book: https://bit.ly/43P4noC
📰 Extended Press Coverage (Associated Press):
Truth, Trauma, and Healing in the Outback

MEDIA ENQUIRIES:
Press kit available on request
Hayley Brown
Publicist, Down Under Interviews/Outback Odyssey
📧 [email protected]
📞 +61 (0)4 3172 4652