AustLit

'In Lucky Ticket, a collection of 12 stories, Vietnamese-Australian author Joey Bui acts as a ventriloquist for a number of voices: men and women across the age spectrum, with several tales based on interviews with Vietnamese refugees around the world.' (Introduction)

'“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)