William Trevor's stories are throwbacks, contemporary, and timeless

Looking through William Trevor's "Selected Stories," his four most recent story collections brought into a single volume, I can see that he publishes a collection of stories ever 4 years or so, each of about a dozen stories, which means he writes and publishes 3 or 4 stories a year - a steady output that doesn't seem like that much except: he also writes novels (a bit on the side?, to use his terminology), and he's been at it steadily for decades and - each of the stories is a true work of art that only becomes more profound and impressive when you see them within the context of his whole life's work. What makes a Trevor story "Trevorian"? And what is his particular world-view? A noted in yesterday's post and by may readers and critics, there is a strong affinity with Chekhov - lonely characters who gradually and reluctantly come to terms with the limits of their lives. Reading a few more of the stories, though, it strikes me that Trevor's character may seem very old world - the older characters in particular, as they often live in a simple poverty vaguely romantic poverty of the Cotswold cottage and self-reliance, not much found in the U.S. today - but in many ways his themes are contemporary - reading them in sequences I'm struck by how important infidelity is as a theme, divorce and its effect on young children, homosexuality or more accurately homophobia (Timothy's Birthday), and petty crime. The stories are at once throwbacks, contemporary, and timeless.