The Boundary Waters chronicles the unfolding and sometimes comic relationship between Raymona Washington Goldberg and Matthew Pierson. Raymona is an African American woman adopted as an infant by Jewish father and a German Catholic mother during a Freedom Ride in the 1960's. She spends her time barricaded in her Upper East Side rent controlled apartment in New York City, afraid to be contaminated by the stories lurking in the most common circumstances. Matthew is a gay man who geographically lives in Minneapolis but psychically inhabits a world of romantic fantasies. Matthew distracts himself by recounting romantic stories in which he becomes entangled. Their phone conversations provide a hygienic boundary through which Raymona experiences the world and Matthew has an audience. Their relationship takes a dramatic turn when Matthew entangles himself with three other gay men who are going to The Boundary Waters in Minnesota. One of the men is at the end stage of AIDS. Matthew is quite suddenly captured in an adventure in which wishful happy endings lose all meaning. Without Matthew's stories droning on the phone, Raymona becomes desperate and ventures outside her apartment, taking an epic journey on the subway. There she begins to awaken to the complex and often heartbreaking stories of her ancestors. Not only does the boundary between Raymona and Matthew start shifting, but both characters begin exploring the carefully guarded boundaries in their own lives. Their stories interact in a kind of synchrony as they stumble through the comedy and tragedy of the human condition.