For the declaration that he is the greatest living short-story writer in English to have become a cliché, William Trevor must be doing something right.

After a cover-to-cover reading of this Anglo-Irishman’s second doorstop collection, “Selected Stories,” what lingers is less lone memorable tales than a feeling—or rather intervals of feelings that build into an emotional chord. Sorrow is the dominant note, blending with regret, wistfulness, loss, longing and an indefinable sweetness that makes the whole downer package much easier to take. Sorrow is a pleasure in Trevor world—richer, deeper and more sustaining than the crack cocaine of happiness, whose usefulness lies largely in recollection; remembered happiness sharpens the cozy pain of the present’s on-and-on. Mr. Trevor’s stories are sad but rarely depressing. They leave one marveling at the astonishing variety of other people’s private, singular disappointments.

Lionel Shriver