Occupying Nazareth is the story of Horace Bain, a midwestern mayor who tries to lure climate change's weather-weary people to a once prosperous town with the offer of $50,000 per family. Bain envisions a return to the city's past glory before manufacturing plants went away and left the town poor. He hopes wealthier citizens will infuse cash and that "Train Town" will be resurrected from its rustbelt status and will again be a place where businesses thrive.

McClane book-length narrative poem is a study of occupation, of subjugation, of how socially and economically disparate people come to establish a class hierarchy, where there are solid winners and losers. While Nazareth, Ohio is a fictionalized city, it suggests numerous towns in America that are in economic decline. Its poetry is speculative, asserting a future of migration from the costs inland.