He attended the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania before serving in the United States Army Air Forces in the Pacific during World War II.
[citation needed] His debut as an author came in 1956 with The Crack in the Picture Window, a broadside at sprawling suburban housing developments.
He also wrote numerous magazine articles, which led to non-fiction books and biographies.
[citation needed] However, at the time of his death in 2000, he was living in Kingston, Ontario,[citation needed] where he had moved in order to be close to the island featured in his 1974 book Of Time and an Island.
[citation needed] Keats died on November 3, 2000, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.