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Summer and Smoke is a play set in Mississippi in the early 20th Century about the conflict between the spiritual and the physical. Alma, the daughter of a minister, had to assume many of the duties in the parish as her mother became mentally ill. Alma, whose name means "soul" in Spanish, is a sensitive, virtuous woman concerned with the spiritual side of life, but sexually repressed.

Her neighbor, John, is a physician and grew up in a home containing his father's medical office. He is very sensual, and spends his time drinking and chasing fast women at the Moon Lake Casino.

Alma and John have an attraction to each other, but totally different lifestyles. John does not think of the spiritual, and shows Alma the anatomy chart of the body hanging in his office asking, "You think you're stuffed with roseleaves?" But Alma has loved him with her soul.

When John goes away to fight an epidemic, he returns with appreciation for the spiritual side of life. Alma, who had been hysterical and repressed, tells John, "But now the Gulf wind has blown that feeling away, like a cloud of smoke." They have been transformed and come full circle. Alma is ready for a relationship, but John is already pledged to another. The author seems to be saying that both the spiritual and the physical are necessary to be a complete person.

The set shows the rectory on one side, and the doctor's office on the other side of the stage. The angel "Eternity" is kneeling in the park in the center, pouring out healing waters needed for both their life on earth, and eternal life.

The play has characters similiar to A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Glass Menagerie with sensitive women, strong sensual men, and characters with mental illness.