Train on Thursday: Tonio by A.F.Th. van der Heijden

I travel with public transport on a regular base. I always love to check out what other people read while traveling. When I get a chance I take a look if their book would be something for me.
The book was situated on the table while the man was waiting for the train to depart. 

One the early morning of Pentecost 2010 the only son of Van der Heijden and his wife Mirjam Rotenstreich gets seriously injured in a traffic accident. He is being brough to the hospital in critical condition and will die later that day from his injuries.
A.F.Th. van der Heijden turns to the only thing he is capable of. He starts hiding in memories, writing them down. Slowly building up his sons past to that fatal moment trying to reconstruct everything that happend to find answers for the two most important questions. What was his son doing and thinking of in the last moments of his life and how could that accident happen.
The book covers this search for answers, the hope of a father to make sense of losing his child in such a tragic way.

This book has won ALL the awards last year. It was the number 13 of best sold books of 2012 and 47 in 2011 the year the book was published. Due to the background story the book has gotten a lot of attention.
As I am not much of a memoir biography reader I never really considered picking up this book. The synopsis does not attract me at all. I like to relax while reading a book and even though I do not mind reading books where bad things happen I do not think I would be able to relax reading a this book with this background story.

Do you read books aboud sad true events even when they are this personal?
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