The Big Day

Donald Cuthbertson prided himself on being a model for his students and teachers, but he had lately begun to lose his focus. Degree Day is approaching, along with a birthday party for his wife, Lavinia, who is not going quietly into middle age. Her lavish costume party provides the revelers with a darkly comic resolution to romantic dalliance and political intrigue.

It was a big day for Cuthbertson's Regional School, and it would go off like a bomb.

Barry Unsworth, who won the Booker Prize for Sacred Hunger, was a Booker Prize finalist for Morality Play and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize for The Ruby in Her Navel. He lives in Italy.