The novel Berlinar-aspirnar (Berlin Poplars) could easily be dubbed ‘The Original Sin'. It is the story of three brothers. Margido Neshov, an unmarried man in his mid-fifties, serves as an undertaker in Trondheim. At the ancestral farm just outside the city, his elder brother Tóri resides alongside their aged mother, their disdainful and silent father, and several pigs. In Copenhagen lives Erlendur, the third brother, who left at a young age and came out as a gay man. He works as a window decorator and lives with the Danish newspaper editor, Krummi.

The week before Christmas, their mother suffers from a cerebral haemorrhage and is rendered terminal. The three brothers gather to be at their mother’s side. They have not seen each other in ages. Tórunn, Tóri’s daughter, whom he barely knows, also turns up. While their mother grapples with her condition, it becomes evident that the roots, which the brothers have each tried to sever, run deeper than they thought. And new, uknown roots are now appearing.