Someone once said that the entire story of America in the nineteenth century is encompassed in the saga of the James brothers: psychologist William and novelist Henry James in the east, and outlaws Frank and Jesse James in the west. This is what inspired humorist Richard Liebmann-Smith to wonder: What if William and Henry’s actual troubled younger brothers became Frank and Jesse James?

On a train in 1876, Henry James is returning home from his journalistic tour under a cloud of psychosomatic symptoms. Across the aisle sits the beguiling Elena Hite, the daughter of a railroad baron, who will soon know all of the James boys’ secrets. But their conversation comes to a halt when the train is stopped and boarded by the notorious James Gang, led by Fran and Jesse, who stride into the coach with guns ablaze.