The Pigman Goeth: A Farewell to Paul Zindel and a Primer on Challenged Books

By Kathleen Wilson

When Paul Zindel died from cancer on March 27, 2003, at the age of 66, the literary world lost its Grand Poobah of young adult doom and gloom, the author of the bittersweet classics The Pigman and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. In the 1960s, Zindel was one of the first authors to address the gritty world of teen angst and disillusionment. Given the a-changin' times, his novels of youth realism soon became a profitable niche, and for the next several decades that niche was where Zindel camped out, churning out tales to sulk by, right next to S. E. Hinton and Robert Cormier. Zindel racked up literary awards while simultaneously giving voice to the cynicism enveloping many teenagers in those dark days of the 1970s, before MTV was around to cheer them up.

Zindel dared to tell young readers that their worst suspicions in life were true: The world is full of misery and hypocrisy, and not only can no one can guarantee that everything is going to turn out all right, but in fact things will probably suck for a good long while to come. The Pigman, published in 1968, featured misfit teens who befriend an old man and then cruelly betray him and cause his death. The Effect of Gamma Rays, from 1971, was loosely based on Zindel's I-never-promised-you-a-rose-garden childhood and concerns a maliciously daffy mom and her studious daughter, whose school science project serves as a metaphor for her home life. Radioactivity can cause either death, she demonstrates, or beautiful mutations in the flowers subjected to it. The play won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and oodles of other awards, a major step on his way to the literary pantheon, but perhaps more importantly — and more durably — his attempt at keepin' it real earned him what looks to be a permanent spot on the American Library Association's (ALA) list of Most Frequently Challenged Books.

According to the ALA, a challenge to a book "is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. . . . Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others." The ALA compiles a list of both challenged authors and books annually, and for the year 2000, the list of most challenged authors went like this: J. K. Rowling, Robert Cormier, Lois Duncan, Piers Anthony, Walter Dean Myers, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, John Steinbeck, Maya Angelou, Christopher Pike, Caroline Cooney, Alvin Schwartz, Lois Lowry, Harry Allard, Paul Zindel, and Judy Blume.

Any avid reader who grew up in the 1970s is bound to spy a few of their favorite writers on that list, which just proves the durability of parental and community outrage. Nevermind what Madonna is up to these days, some people still find it unacceptable to let minors read about social misfits getting into fistfights or suffering the effects of parental neglect. The ALA's list of challenged titles for 2000 is similarly full of chestnuts from the Time before Cable. In fact, it would be a useful list for any parent looking to wean their tween from the Disney aesthetic. For young kids, there's Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic, and Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen. For older kids who can't stomach the sanitized sweetness of Lizzie McGuire, there's Zindel's The Pigman along with Hinton's The Outsiders and Cormier's The Chocolate War. For kids who appreciate a good tear-jerker, there's Flowers for Algernon and Lois Lowry's The Giver. Then there's good ol' Judy Blume, who after all these years remains a one-woman juggernaut of parental apoplection. And for precocious children looking to develop their literary pedigree, they can pick up a copy of anything written by Toni Morrison. Practically all her novels are on the list.

Of course, many of the ALA's most challenged books are contemporary. Harry Potter tops the list of books challenged in 2002, and as for books most challenged throughout the 1990s, the honor belongs to Alvin Schwartz's Scary stories. But what's different about these books is that they're purely fantasy. One reasonably surmises that Rowling's and Schwartz's books are challenged by religious groups that oppose any depiction of the supernatural outside a biblical context. Zindel and his cohort were writers of reality. Pregnant teenagers, premarital sex, drug use, peer pressure, insensitive parents—these stories got the establishment up in arms without uttering a single magic spell. But best of all, they've stood the test of time. None of these books would be making the ALA's list in the 21st century if new generations of readers hadn't discovered, read, and kept the books in print over the years.

Writing a book that outlasts the trend for bell-bottomed jeans (not once, but twice it seems) is no small feat. Talk to any successful YA writer, and he or she will tell you the secret to success is never writing down to children. Zindel knew the lesson well. "Teenagers have to rebel," he told a writer for Publishers Weekly. "It's part of the growing process. In effect, I try to show them they aren't alone in condemning parents and teachers as enemies or ciphers. I believe I must convince my readers that I am on their side; I know it's a continuing battle to get through the years between twelve and twenty — an abrasive time. And so I write always from their own point of view."

In the current literary climate, where spell-spouting wizards and gross-out spooky stories are at the top of both the bestseller and the parental objection lists, it is a pleasure to see that Zindel has also remained relevant. A new production of Gamma Rays by the Jean Cocteau Rep at the Bouwerie Lane Theater in Manhattan opened in April, and he was awarded the 2002 Margaret A. Edward Award for lifetime contributions to young people's literature.

Sources:

• American Library Association Web site, http://www.ala.org (May 12, 2003).
• New York Times, March 28, 2003, James Barron, "Paul Zindel, Author and Prize-Winning Playwright, Dies at 66.