Raymond Carver wrote mostly about the joys and sorrows of politically powerless and socially insignificant working-class people. In this respect he resembled John Steinbeck, whose best-known work is the Depression-era novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Carver differed from Steinbeck, however, in having no political agenda. Steinbeck was a socialist for most of his life, believing that the lives of the masses could be improved by government and by substituting faith in socialism for faith in God. Carver was apolitical in his writings but seems to have had a working-class distrust of politicians and people who did not work with their hands.