We are all decreased by the death of Fred Bonnie, who suffered a massive heart attack on Wednesday, May 10, resulting in a car crash, and died early Saturday, May 13, without regaining consciousness.
Fred was extremely talented, hard-working, and a keen observer of the human condition. His many, many friends and admirers will remember him as both a gifted writer and a superb raconteur. He was funny, witty, and, at bottom, a very compassionate man. He wrote about the high-life and the low-life with equal joy and understanding. We will all miss him very, very much. He was 54.
Fred was generous to other writers, and he kept getting better and better in his own work. He was just beginning to get wide recognition as a writer of fiction, but he was also well-known as a gardening and food writer. A native of Portland, Maine, he came to Alabama in 1974 to become the gardening editor of Southern Living magazine. As with most aspects of Fred's life, he had a funny, self-deprecating story about that first Alabama job. But he stayed here most of the rest of his adult life, and he wrote and wrote and actively participated in the writing community. He was one of the organizers of the annual Writing Today literary conference at Birmingham-Southern, and he had been among the handful of talented young writers who worked with Jesse Hill Ford in a now near-fabled seminar at UAB in the late 1970s.
He had published about a dozen nonfiction and fiction books, including the widely acclaimed short story collections, Detecting Metal (Livingston Press) in 1998 and Food Fights (Black Belt Press) in 1997. His first novel, Thanh Ho Delivers (Black Belt Press), had just been published, and he was justifiably proud of it.
Fred was apparently driving alone last Wednesday morning near Spartanburg, S.C., on his way back from a North Carolina book signing, when he had a heart attack. His car left the interstate, went over an embankment and crashed through a fence, where it may have gone undetected for some time. By the time he was found and received medical attention, it was too late.
Fred lived in Columbiana, just south of Birmingham, with his wife, Rhonda Carter, a physician, who is expecting their first child. He had a daughter, Samantha, from an earlier marriage.
A memorial service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, May 17, at Southern Heritage Funeral Home in Pelham, Alabama (just off I-65 at exit number 246).