Kluger began his career as a journalist, working for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and the New York Herald Tribune (he was its last literary editor).

Kluger left journalism to serve as executive editor at Simon & Schuster and editor-in-chief at Atheneum.

Kluger has written books of fiction and social history. He is the author of six novels (and two others with his wife, Phyllis). Two of his books are National Book Award finalists, Simple Justice and The Paper (a history of the Herald Tribune). Moreover, his historical study of the American cigarette business, Ashes to Ashes, won the Pulitzer Prize. Most recently, he has completed Seizing Destiny, an extended investigation of how the current territory of the United States was amassed.