"Over the course of 1,000 pages, Studs and his family are presented as hypocritical, bigoted, violent and politically reactionary."

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  At least in the between the wars period, Catholics were still trying to find their place in American society.  Now they are fully assimilated and too often have embraced the most xenophobic and anti-intellectual tendencies of the people who once oppressed them.