Necessary Roughness

Necessary Roughness by Marie G. Lee is a young adult fiction book originally published in 1996. The novel is a drama that focuses on the Kim family and their teenage son Chan as they move from Los Angeles to Iron River, Minnesota. Like Chan, Lee is Korean American, and she grew up in a small Minnesota town similar to the fictional town of Iron River. The book explores themes related to The Difficulties of Coming of Age, Navigating Cultural Difference, and The Personal Impact of Faith.

This guide uses the Kindle version of the novel, published in 2011 by HarperTeen.

Content Warning: This novel contains depictions of racism, sexism, and anti-gay bias, including racist, sexist, and anti-gay slurs that are reproduced in the guide only in direct quotes.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with the main character and narrator, Chan Kim, stewing in the back of his family’s car. The Kims—Chan, his twin sister Young, his mother, and his father—have sold the family grocery store and departed from their tight-knit community of Korean immigrants in Los Angeles to the small town of Iron River, Minnesota. Uncle Bong, Chan’s father’s brother, is an ambitious but unreliable man who franchised a store called Froggy’s Express in Iron River, then quickly abandoned the endeavor for another scheme back in Korea.