D. Keith Mano, a conservative Christian writer known for exploring the "problems and passions of Christianity in the modern world," died September 14, the New York Times reported. He was 74 and had complications related to Parkinson's disease.
Perhaps best known for his 1982 novel Take Five, about the fall of a New York filmmaker named Simon Lynxx, Mano began his writing career in 1968 with Bishop's Progress. The novel told of a struggle between an Episcopal bishop and Beelzebub disguised as a surgeon, and over the next five years Mano wrote five more novels: Horn, War Is Heaven, The Death and Life of Harry Goth, The Proselytizer and The Bridge. Take Five took Mano nine years to write, and though it was well regarded by critics the novel was not a commercial success (it was reissued by Dalkey Archive Press in 1998; his other novels are out of print). He would not publish another novel until 1990's Topless, about an Episcopal priest who winds up running his brother's New York City topless bar. Mano also had an extensive career as a journalist, writing for Playboy, the National Review, the New York Times Book Review and more, and later in life wrote both for the stage and television.
According to the Times, Mano "once boasted that he was the one person whom the sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer considered too dirty to talk to," and "accepted the label of Christian pornographer."