Cirrus@Austlit

'“She wrote weird stories with no endings,” one character observes of another in Joey Bui’s debut. In a way, this could be said of Bui’s writing, too – Lucky Ticket is a strange and spellbinding collection of short stories with question-mark conclusions, presenting glimpses into the ordinary and extraordinary lives of migrants. These stories often finish on an image, a thought or a reflection, rather than offering any closure – they are about lives in flux, ever changing and not so easily defined. Even when diving into matters of great emotion, Bui largely avoids sentimentality, writing with a pragmatism that will feel familiar to anyone raised in a migrant family.' (Introduction)