Richard Kluger began a career in journalism at The Wall Street Journal and was a writer for Forbes magazine and then the New York Post before becoming literary editor of the New York Herald Tribune. In book publishing he served as executive editor at Simon and Schuster and editor in chief at Atheneum. In addition to his two books of social history, he has written six novels.

He and his wife, Phyllis, who have two sons and have written two novels together, live near Princeton, New Jersey.