Photo by Engin Akyurt
Albert Sipes is the author of The Mildenhall Legacy, a sober and reflective novel about living in a changing world and learning the values that made the USA great.
The Mildenhall Legacy is set across the southwestern regions of the United States of America as 22-year-old Eve Chambers travels across the country, looking for ways to supplement and complete her education. Throughout her multiple attempts to work for a brighter future, she takes many jobs, even becoming a truck driver to earn a bit of a salary. Her journey takes her to many places in the continental US (there are brief touches in France, the Middle East, and parts of Africa), and in her travels, new people come and go, with some becoming family.
This book is about being stubborn against change—a change that goes against your values—when Eve discovers that she is the heir to the Mildenhall oil fortune, it might have filled her bank account, but there are new challenges and obstacles that have bloomed and even more questions to follow.
Albert Sipes, the author, aims to convey a new narrative for the American psyche. Where the protagonist not only seeks an opportunity for herself but also invites the people around her to share in her reward. Momentous change arrives in his protagonist, but because of a great conviction in her truth, she keeps to her core values and persists ever onward with them.
The Mildenhall Legacy is a story that is sure to resonate with people from all walks of life, from the downtrodden to those high up in the seats. It is a novel that weaves in knowledge pulled from multiple facets of American society: the military, academia, and the transit industry. The themes of ambition, forgiveness, redemption, and sacrifice run deep in the pages of the book, enforcing the lessons of choices and values that the story wants to convey.
The primary through-line of The Mildenhall Legacy is the importance of sticking to your values and never letting whatever comes at you knock you down!
A New Figure in Conservative Literature
If you want to know more about the author of The Mildenhall Legacy, Albert L. Sipes actually has an autobiography written in 2020: Boomer-1945: My Inspired Journey.
But to talk about him briefly: his outlook on the world and broader reality are backed and reinforced by a conservative upbringing and a hint of genuine skepticism. The most important moments that influenced him most were his time as an Army copy editor for a military newspaper in Vietnam and his time as a radio broadcaster in Denver. Another factor that shaped his worldview was his experience as a professional truck driver, jumping from a transportation company to a transportation company, mainly operating across the United States and Canada.
The Importance of Conservatism in Literature
There is a pervasive liberal streak in most contemporary literature, so there is a growing need for conservative literature to anchor itself and spread wider to more readers and for more conservative writers to make their names known.
The Mildenhall Legacy is the first step towards establishing that cultural bulwark.
A Brief Definition of Conservatism
Conservatism, at its core, is a philosophy that advocates for the preservation of traditions, mainly perennial institutions, practices, and values. Basically, the central tenet of conservatism is the maxim: “If it is not broken, do not fix it.” Conservatism espouses the utility and importance of historical continuity and objective, unchanging values. The constituent principles of conservatism differ from culture to culture, but their reverence for religion, family, property rights, and nationalism is consistent across the board. While some conservative moments are against some creeping aspects of modernity, such as multiculturalism and secular values, it is not so ingrained or persistent.
Themes Present in Conservative Literature
Because traditional and historical contexts vary from culture to culture, some observers have defined conservatism as a situation-dependent philosophy, but here are the main threads that a reader can always glean from reading conservative literature:
- Tradition – There is an emphasis on the importance and sometimes sacredness of what is familiar compared to the destructive potential and corrupting influence of the unknown. It is the nearest that takes the highest priority while the distant is, if not downright ignored, looked at with deep caution.
- Hierarchy – Another defining trait of conservatism is its defense of a social ladder and the meritocratic structure. Those who work are rewarded. This is in opposition to left-leaning arguments for natural and baseline equality, wherein even the undeserving are granted clemency.
- Realism – This is based on Thomas Hobbes’ argument that the natural state of humanity is “poor, nasty [and] brutish.” Therefore, society must require a body to govern and guide it.
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