Burning Down the House (novel)

Published in 2016 by Knopf, it tells the story of a rich real estate mogul and the challenges and crises within his complicated family.

Poppy is the orphaned niece, and adopted daughter, of the patriarch of the Zanes, a wealthy New York real estate clan.

Donna Seaman gave Burning Down the House a Booklist starred review, writing, “With gorgeous, feverishly imaginative descriptions of her tormented characters’ psyches, and setting ranging from Manhattan to Istanbul to Laos, Mendelsohn, oracular, dazzling, and shocking, creates a maelstrom of tragic failings and crimes, exposing the global reach of the violent sex-trafficking underworld, and excoriating those among the ‘planetary elite’ who allow it to metastasize.”[1] The Millions said, “The author of the 1990s bestseller I Was Amelia Earhart here focuses on a wealthy New York family beset by internal rivalries and an involvement, perhaps unwitting, in a dark underworld of international crime.

Mendelsohn’s novel hopscotches the globe from Manhattan to London, Rome, Laos, and Turkey, trailing intrigue and ill-spent fortunes.”[2] Kirkus Reviews wrote, "While the dark and twisting plot is heavy on brooding intrigue (international sex trafficking, incest), the book is sharpest when it’s dealing with more quotidian concerns (disappointment, aging).

"[3] Paste said, "In tracing the fall of patriarch Steven Zane’s real estate kingdom and the sickening gyres of sex trafficking, Mendelsohn has written a novel in stereoscopic Victorian fashion that puts fear on display—fear of parents for their children, of replacement, of loss, of self, of others.