Greta and the Labrador

Greta Garbo, the immortal goddess of the silver screen, said that she wanted to be alone. What if she had been granted that wish? What if she had travelled further and further away from humanity, until she arrived at the North Pole? And what if she met a faithful dog along the way – a black Labrador called Pikus, who loved her with all his noble doggy heart?

Greta and the Labrador is a narrative fantasy poem in rhyming couplets that imagines all these things and more: a tribute to a legendary beauty, an adventure story, and a kind of love story – one that will appeal to anyone who likes Garbo, and dogs, and curious stories with a happy ending.

“A beautifully told-and-illustrated story of existential ennui and doggy devotion.”
Nicholas Lezard

“Kevin Jackson offers us a delightful entertainment in couplets in eight fitts, together with spendid black and white illustrations by Jo Dalton. A gift for lovers of dogs and the silver screen.”
George Szirtes

THE LITERARY REVIEW: Kevin Jackson’s Greta and the Labrador came as a delightful surprise to me. It’s a poem ‘in eight fitts’ that imagines what happened to the legendary Greta Garbo when she finally quit Hollywood, which she had graced with her languorous beauty for decades. Jackson’s Garbo wants solitude so much she will go to extraordinary lengths to achieve it. Of course, this is complete fantasy; the plentiful accounts of her later life in articles and biographies tell quite a different story. The book is exquisitely designed and Jo Dalton’s illustrations are a constant joy.   Here is a Greta whom no mere human being can satisfy. Countries and cultures bore her to senselessness. Her heart is frozen as a glacier. The, one fortuitous day, she encounters an abandoned black Labrador whom she calls Pikus. She nurses the dog back to health and then she, too, abandons him. But the dog, now utterly devoted to her, refuses to go away and turns up to declare his canine love. They find happiness together at the North Pole, keeping themselves warm and hunting for things to eat. It’s a homage of sorts to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear and I’m tempted to call it high doggerel, which is in fact a compliment. I shall be giving it to friends this Christmas.  
Paul Bailey

Illustrated by JO DALTON

Limited edition prints available here.