CAREER
OH, THE HORROR! BY BRIAN KOONZ I L LU S T R AT I O N S I M O N P E M B E RT O N
As a student, Bracken MacLeod, JD ’00, reveled in the grip of a good story. He loved connecting the dots of a winning argument and drafting an airtight tale with his words. “Trying a case isn’t about setting out a series of objective facts on the table and letting a jury pick them up and come to a conclusion,” MacLeod said from his home in Framingham, Massachusetts. “Trying a case is really about telling a story and making sure the narrative you tell is the most compelling.” Or, as MacLeod likes to say, “Scratch a lawyer, find a writer.” After working as an estate litigator in Boston and hanging out his own shingle for nearly a decade, MacLeod, 47, found a long-lost muse in his keyboard six years ago. Instead of telling stories about his clients, he began telling stories about death and darkness. And he was good at it. Really good. The attorney-turned-author has enjoyed swift and critical acclaim writing horror novels, including last fall’s “Stranded,” which was nominated for a 2016 Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in a novel. Stephen King and Anne Rice are previous winners of the coveted Stoker awards. In “Stranded,” MacLeod employs themes of isolation, 38
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