Never finishing his college degree, he elected instead to work for the New York Herald Tribune from 1931 onward, following in his father's path as a sports writer.
[5] He also deployed with the first American troops to Australia in 1942, and wrote the book Southwest Passage, published in 1943, documenting that experience.
In addition, he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Woman's Home Companion.
[3][4] Subsequently his friend, the author Roger Kahn, gathered many of his pieces into a book, The World of John Lardner.
The family moved to the East Coast when he was seven, eventually settling on Long Island, where their friends and neighbors included Grantland Rice, Franklin Pierce Adams, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.