The novel is a futurist social satire about a man who is made of light smoke, initially received as a bringer of a golden age and tasked with creating a new legal code, before the public turns against him.

[2] He gets to meet various dignitaries and quickly gains an enthusiastic following among people and rulers, who regard him as a bringer of a golden age, sent by divine providence, although he barely says anything and does nothing at his own initiative.

To prepare the code, Perelà visits various places in the city and meets people of different social statuses, including two nuns of whom one is a repentant sinner and the other a virgin, the cemetery, the Meadow of Love, the prison where the former king is kept and a mental asylum.

The excitement dies and people become hostile to Perelà when an old palace servant, Alloro, commits suicide by fire in a failed attempt to also become a man made of smoke.

The literary scholar Anthony Julian Tamburri describes the novel as anti-realist and as an allegory about how strict norms and conventions make it impossible for a man like Perelà to participate in society.

[1] The literary scholar Stephen Marth has argued that the way people in the novel impose what they desire on Perelà is reminiscent of how Palazzeschi in his 1945 book Tre imperi... mancati; cronaca 1922–1945 (lit.

'Three Failed Empires: Chronicles 1922–1945') described how he thought people had imposed their own ideas on Benito Mussolini, co-creating Il Duce as a fictional character.

[7] Tamburri writes that Man of Smoke contrasts greatly to the conventional Italian literature of its time, a trait it shares with the poetry Palazzeschi otherwise was known for, to which the novel works as a companion piece.