Heh, much as I would like to make Traviata solely a family issues story, I suspect the music resists that interpretation; Violetta and Alfredo get a LOT of great music, and Germont's great music is almost solely in conjunction with Violetta, not Alfredo (and thus in service of the love story, not the family story).

I'd be interested to hear what you had to say about that book! I am actually really enjoying 19th-century opera these days (some switch seems to have turned in my brain) but if I never saw another beautifully-suffering-and-dying heroine again I'd be pretty happy.