The family grieved. A few years later Patricia’s mother re-married. Her new husband was a widower with six children of his own. Their families merged. Suddenly, Patty became the youngest of a dozen siblings.

She lost her father at such a young age she could barely remember him. She wanted to know about him. What was he like? Her family talked about Howard. Through their stories Patty was able to imagine him.

Kambitsch’s quest to know her dad led her to write a book, “Looks Like Howard — An Irreverent Memoir of Death, Childhood, and Growing Up.” She explains that “he really represents storytelling to me.” Because she only knew him through the stories her family told about him, “he became not just a father, but a mythological creature.”

“Looks Like Howard” opens with the line, “As long as I’ve known Howard, he’s been dead.” This is our first inkling that this book is something special. Kambitsch describes some serious events; accidental death, suicide, divorce — but she has such a light touch throughout that even sad moments twinkle with wry humor.

Kambitsch writes with the neurotic wackiness of an Anne Lamott. She has a droll wit that reminded me of Anna Quindlen. Kambitsch is the real deal.

The book shifts backwards and forwards in time as childhood memories are juxtaposed with visits to her therapist. His name is also Howard. That name is so special to her that “I Google Howard. I’m not looking for any Howard in particular, just Howard. I know it seems childish, but I get a thrill seeing the phrase ‘searching for Howard’ in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.”

Their next door neighbor, a Mr. Wilson, was in the fishing boat with her dad when the accident happened. Throughout the course of the book she fights the urge to confront Wilson to ask him what really happened that day. He still lives next door.

She wants to ask him because “as far as I know, no one I knew, not even my mother, asked Mr. Wilson about the details.” Every day they see Mr. Wilson yet “no one dared ask why it was that no one asked.” That’s where her family of storytellers chimes in. “The children of Howard never needed to ask because each of us tells our own story about what happened.” Her desire to solve the mystery of Howard leads to flights of fancy.

The book rises up and clamps right down on our funnybones. “Anything could have happened to Howard. Alien abduction, cyborg mutation, an ill-fated love polygon involving Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedy brothers…” She means anything; “maybe Howard was stricken with amnesia, turned gay, and wandered off to SoHo to write poetry and smoke his pipe with Allen Ginsberg.”

Meanwhile, her therapist is dipping into the wellspring of her anguish. He asks her “what makes you so afraid?” She enumerates some of her fears. She realizes that ” I’m afraid that I’m just a big weirdo and that there’s nothing special about me. I’m afraid of pain. I’m afraid that my children won’t have a world fit for raising their children. I’m afraid of all the different ways the world is ending and I’ll be the last human being left alive. I’m afraid of overpopulation.”

“Looks Like Howard” defies the current depressing vogue in memoir. Kambitsch challenges that stereotype; “we all carry our stories around with us - why not tell the one that is the most fun?”