Zindel wrote a total of 53 books, all but one of them aimed at children or teens. Many were set in his home town of Staten Island. 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 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. They moved frequently, and his mother often engaged in "get-rich-quick" schemes that did not succeed. His father abandoned them early in his life. This upbringing was most closely depicted in "Confessions of a Teenage Baboon".