Paul Zindel

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Paul Zindel (May 15, 1936–March 27, 2003) was an American author and playwright. Throughout his teen years he wrote plays, though he trained as a chemist at Wagner College and spent six months working at Allied Chemical after graduating. He later quit and worked as a high school science teacher at Tottenville High School located on Staten Island NY. In 1965, he wrote The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, his first play that went into production. The play ran off-Broadway in 1970, and on Broadway in 1971. It won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for drama. It was also made into a 1972 movie by 20th Century Fox. While watching a public television presentation of the play, the renowned children's book editor Charlotte Zolotow, then a vice-president at Harper & Row (now Harper-Collins), electrified by his unflinching portrayal of teenagers, decided to contact him about writing books for young adults. This led to the next phase of his career, numerous novels, all of them aimed at children or young adults

Many of these were set in his home town of Staten Island, New York. They tended to be semi-autobiographical, focusing on teenage misfits with abusive or neglectful parents. Zindel himself grew up in a single-parent household, his mother working as a nurse. They moved frequently, and his mother often engaged in "get-rich-quick" schemes which didn't pan out. His father walked out on them. Despite the often dark subject matter of his books, which deal with loneliness, loss, and the effects of abuse, they are also filled with humor. Many of his novels have wacky titles, such as My Darling, My Hamburger, or Confessions of A Teenage Baboon. His most popular work is probably The Pigman, first published in 1968. The novel is widely taught in American schools, and also made it on to the list of most frequently banned books in America in the 1990s, because of what some deem offensive language [1].

On March 27, 2003, he died of lung cancer.

Contents

[edit] Trivia

  • Zindel has two children, Lizabeth Zindel a published novelist, playwright and actress and filmmaker David Zindel. Lizabeth's authorized web page is www.lizabethzindel.com.
  • He taught writing at USC as a guest professor.
  • He has an authorized web page, filled with details and photographs from his life.

[edit] List of works

[edit] Plays

[edit] Novels

  • The Pigman. New York: Harper, 1968.
  • My Darling, My Hamburger. New York: Harper, 1969.
  • I Never Loved Your Mind. New York: Harper, 1970.
  • I Love My Mother. (juvenile) New York: Harper, 1975.
  • Pardon Me, You're Stepping on My Eyeball! New York: Harper, 1976.
  • Confessions of a Teenage Baboon. New York: Harper, 1977.
  • The Undertaker's Gone Bananas. New York: Harper, 1978.
  • (With wife, Bonnie Zindel) A Star for the Latecomer. New York: Harper, 1980.
  • The Pigman's Legacy. New York: Harper, 1980.
  • The Girl Who Wanted a Boy. New York: Harper, 1981.
  • (With Crescent Dragonwagon) To Take a Dare. New York: Harper, 1982.
  • Harry and Hortense at Hormone High. New York: Harper, 1985.
  • The Amazing and Death-Defying Diary of Eugene Dingman. New York: Harper, 1987.
  • A Begonia for Miss Applebaum. New York: Harper, 1989.
  • The Pigman and Me. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
  • Attack of the Killer Fishsticks. (juvenile) New York: Bantam, 1993.
  • Fifth Grade Safari. New York: Bantam, 1993.
  • Fright Party. (juvenile) New York: Bantam, 1993.
  • David & Della. (juvenile) New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
  • One Hundred Percent Laugh Riot. (juvenile) New York: Bantam, 1994.
  • Loch. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
  • The Doom Stone. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
  • Raptor. New York: Hyperion, 1998.
  • Reef of Death. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.
  • Rats. New York: Hyperion, 1999.
  • The Gadget. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
  • Night of the Bat. New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The Scream Museum. New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The Surfing Corpse. New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The E-Mail Murders. New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The Lethal Gorilla. New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The Square Root of Murder. 2002.
  • Death on the Amazon. 2002.
  • The Gourmet Zombie. 2002.
  • The Phantom of 86th Street. 2002.
  • The Houdini Whodunit. 2002.
  • Death by CD. 2003.
  • The Petrified Parrot. 2003.
  • Camp Megadeath. 2003.

Zindel also wrote the screenplay for the 1974 film Mame.

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