The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Ferris, Joshua. A Calling for Charlie Barnes. Little, Brown and Company, 2021.

Joshua Ferris's novel A Calling for Charlie Barnes is written from Jake Barnes's first person point of view. The novel employs the past tense and an unconventional narrative structure. The first half of the novel presents Jake Barnes's fictionalized account of his father's life. The latter portion of the novel clarifies Jake's fictional distortions, and presents the true version of the Barnes family's experiences. The following summary adheres to a linear mode of exploration.

When Charlie Barnes was in high school, he met a young girl named Sue Starter at a school game. Believing that Sue's request for soda was a request for love, Charlie believed he was entering an important relationship. The young couple soon discovered that Sue was pregnant. They got married and started a life together. Charlie began working, believing that if he could provide for Sue he could make her happy. Only a few months after their son Jerry's birth, Sue told Charlie she hated him and their life. She was also in love with another man. This revelation inspired Charlie to start sleeping around. When Sue caught him with another woman, she threatened to hit him with her car.

Over the following years, Charlie met and married four more women: Barbara Lefurst, Charley Profitt, Evangeline, and Barbara Ledeux.

Charlie met Charley while working at Vermillion County Poor Farm, where they were both doing social work. After their first child, Marcy, was born, the couple began fostering Jake Barnes. Shortly thereafter, Charley became pregnant with a second child, Karen. Realizing that he needed more money to start his family, Charlie decided to tell Charley the truth about himself. He admitted that he was not committed to social work, had had numerous other jobs, and had been married before. Charley struggled to believe her husband's revelations. Not long after Karen's birth, she started an affair with another man. She and Charlie soon divorced, and Charley began dating other men.

Jake was devastated by his foster parents' divorce. He continued trying to keep in touch with his father.

When Jake was 15 he found his father in Illinois. He had been living on the streets and needed a place to stay. Charlie took him in.

Over the years, Jake became convinced that he owed everything to his father. Therefore, years later when he heard that his 68-year-old father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Jake immediately flew home. He stayed with Charlie and Barbara for several months.

Shortly before Charlie's Whipple procedure, he asked Jake to write the true story of his life. Jake promised his father that he would do his best. However, in the writing process, Jake found his father's story almost impossible to tell. His father died shortly after the procedure, and Jake tried using his writing for catharsis. Finally, he realized that no matter how he wrote Charlie's account, it would appear fantastical. He therefore decided to protract Charlie's life on the page, and to embellish his experiences however he desired.

When his siblings read the manuscript, they chastised Jake. They all accused him of manipulating the truth and misrepresenting them. Jake was hurt at first, but eventually realized that he was in control of his own narrative. He made peace with his love of fiction and his father's dubious life.