He later quit and worked as a high-school Chemistry and Physics teacher at Tottenville High School on Staten Island for ten years.

Zindel seemed to gravitate toward behavior that allowed him to observe the reactions of others in strange situations: Olen Soifer, visiting with his father Dave, who was the long-time lab technician at the high school, remembers seeing Zindel wearing black shoes with the front of one cut off, such that his white-socked toes could not be missed sticking out of the shoe.

Zindel himself grew up in a single-parent household; his mother worked at various occupations: hat-check girl, shipyard worker, dog breeder, hot-dog vendor, and finally, licensed practical nurse, often boarding terminally ill patients at their home.

It is widely taught in American schools and made it onto the list of most frequently banned books in America in the 1990s; for example, Plano, Texas parents complained of offensive language and sexual themes.

Zindel received the annual Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2002, recognizing his cumulative "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature".

The jury cited five works said to be published 1968 to 1993: The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds; My Darling, My Hamburger; and the Pigman trilogy.

"[4] Beginning with Loch in 1994, Zindel wrote numerous speculative fiction novels for children or young adults, mainly in the horror genre.

A resident of Montague Township, New Jersey,[5] Zindel died in New York City from lung cancer in 2003, at the Jacob Perlow Hospice in Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan.