Tarry Awhile

Beany Malone #12

by Lenora Mattingly Weber

Beany is in love with Carl and they are engaged to be married, however, they must wait a year and nine months for their wedding so that Carlton may graduate from college. Beany becomes envious of her friends as she watches Dulcie plan a flamboyant wedding and Kay returns to Denver with her new husband, Joe. When Kay and Joe move into the cozy apartment over the Malone garage, Beany becomes even more jealous and expresses her complaints to Carl. Beany's pressuring discontent creates problems for the couple.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Childrens

Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Lenora Mattingly, though born in Missouri, lived most of her life in Denver, Colorado. In 1916 she married Albert Herman Weber and was the mother of six children.

Weber's first book, Wind on the Prairie, was published in 1929. From 1930 through 1962 she wrote short stories for magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, and Good Housekeeping. Her last book was published posthumously in 1972.

Lenora Mattingly Weber’s favorite topics included the Denver area, horses, and teenage girls. In 1943 the first Beany Malone book, Meet the Malones, was published. Beany Malone became Weber's most well-known creation, featured in 14 books and appearing as a minor character in the Katie Rose Belford and Stacy Belford series.

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book that comes from the young adult Beany Malone series by Lenora M. Weber. Beany is finally engaged to her next-door beau Carlton but all of her friends are getting married while Carl says they have to wait until he graduates from college, a long year away. When her old friend Kay shows up with her new husband, Joe- a runaway marriage, Beany slowly begins to see that young marriages may not be the thing. It's a book about young love and all the problems that come with those who are not emotionally ready for marriage. It is so very well written. It's my second time reading this book.

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am really starting to get why so many Beany fans don’t like Carlton. I liked the old “good ol' Carl” who used to put the Malone’s dinner on for them, etc. But this Carl seems very void of personality. He’s all manners and stiffness with very little life and mirth to him. I miss Andy. Andy wasn’t perfect but his chemistry with Beany was so much more believable. I kind of feel like even though the author tells us how in love Beany and Carlton are, I just never quite believe it. Surprisingly, I also found Mary Fred to be kind of snooty in this. She misses Dulcie’s wedding, she practically rips Beany’s bridesmaid dress off to wear herself, and then she doesn’t help get Joe and Kay’s apartment ready. It’s made all the worse because I don’t think she’s meant to be unlikeable here! To be fair, does Dulcie grates quite a bit in this book. But I do think people should be more supportive to all the hard work that Dulcie does. She’s basically a good person; she just comes on a little strong and brash sometimes. And Beany...POOR BEANY! Will she ever learn from her mistakes? Will anything ever turn out right for her? How on earth can Kay and Joe survive in their first apartment without a kitchen sink or a bathroom sink?! Jennifer deserves way better than Jag. I thought that she would end up being pregnant and that was the reason for the headache and the rushed wedding. But of course I was wrong. Still, that makes a lot of sense to me. Overall, this wasn’t my favorite Beany book. It seems like the worse and most annoying traits of many of the main characters were really brought out in this plot. I still can't really say I disliked it, though. It's pretty hard for me to dislike a Beany Malone book. Even when so many elements annoy me, I still manage to find them quite entertaining. (Reading this review--with the mentions of boyfriends, rushed marriages and rumored pregnancies--makes it sound like this was some kind of trashy romance. It's really not like that at all; my review just sounds like that! :))

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beany is the antithesis of a Mary Sue: she can never do anything RIGHT. And she never, ever learns from her mistakes. Even to the point of, once again, lying to her boyfriend about the location of a special item of jewelry.

[Panda Incognito · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was published in 1962, and it is a fascinating relic of a bygone era. I forgot how much of the Baby Boom involved kids getting married right out of high school, not just men returning from the war and starting families. (Once again, my review contains minor spoilers for anyone who hasn't read the premises of these books and wants to be surprised by the whole series.)

I have some friends who got married very young, but even so, this book has an element of culture shock because of the number of young couples who are building lives together and facing challenges because of their youth, inexperience, and financial limitations. There are some running jokes related to classmates of Beany's who are married and live in the girl's childhood home with her parents, and I love Carl's disgusted exclamation of, "That's not even a reasonable facsimile of a marriage!"

Beany and her family try to support a newly married friend, and this story details the realistic challenges that this friend and her husband face. It also involves Beany's own frustrations about Carl insisting that they need to wait until after he graduates before they can get married. Beany's feelings are understandable, since she is surrounded by married peers and feels behind, but she's rather unkind to Carl about it. It stressed me out, even though that's a hypocritical thing for me to say when I've used the same theme in my stories.

Because the overarching theme is so familiar to me, it was fascinating to see the differences between Carl and Beany in the early 60s and my characters in the early 2010s. There are so many elements that are timeless and universal, but there are time-bound elements in this book related to the trend of early marriages in the fifties and sixties at the same time that college education was becoming more of a requirement for a stable financial future. The book engages well with the conflicts between young adults going with the social tides and parents who think they should wait for marriage, and the book represents nuanced perspectives.

I found elements of this story stressful, especially as Beany made her usual foolish, impulsive decisions that she could have solved with better communication. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it, and I appreciated the glimpse into a bygone world. I also appreciated the author's representation of Carl as the primary one setting physical boundaries in his relationship with Beany, instead of portraying this as the girl's responsibility.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is amazing when you read another old favorite and the great quotes you see in it.

This one is all about responsibility, marriage and being wise.

The Malone family are old friends of mine. They taught me a lot, including frugal cooking. But also, how real relationships have hard times. These books are very realistic...

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such fun to see Beany in love, engaged, and her batch of friends setting off on the seas of matrimony in vessels of varying seaworthiness. While tempted to get frustrated with Beany in her attempts to help that get her in hot water with fiance Carl, I had to remind myself that she was only 18! Even with the frustrations of waiting til his graduation, that still makes her a 20-year old bride when she marries in the next book.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite of the Beany books.

[Alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this the way one enjoys a sociological treatise on a fascinating subject that is (mostly) obsolete. I was born ten years after this book was published, and grew up in a large metropolitan city in a middle class family, with two parents that had post-secondary education.

My mother was about Beany's age in this book at the time, so while part of me is incredulous at the number of 18 year olds running off to be married, and skeptical about the plausibility as the plot, another part of me knows just enough (being a history buff) to know it's pretty accurate. And it's backed up by the statistics at the US Census Bureau. The median (not average) age at first marriage in 1962 for men was 22.7, and 20.3 for women. (FTR, my parents were 28 and 24 when they got married in 1965, and my H and I were 30 and 31 in 2003).

It's also an interesting snapshot of mid century middle-class society on two other levels as well: in the pre-reliable birth control era, a married couple was always gambling against becoming pregnant before it was planned; and the ability of a young adult with no college education to obtain employment that will pay enough to live on (and both of these are why this book really revolves around Kay and Joe).

So, I liked it from the historical standpoint, because otherwise everything is so far outside of my frame of reference as to cause it to be unbelievable!

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beany irritated me several times during this book - and I loved it. Gah, but poor Kay! Why did she get married?! (I mean I know why, but I was still disappointed).

I'm not sure if this book is meant for teens or not, but this had some pretty grown up (or young adult) themes - don't get married at age 18 or 19 just so you can have sex. And if you do, try not to get pregnant because you're in college! Wow. I truly think that Lenora Mattingly Weber wrote, imagining that her readers were growing up with Beany. But I know that I read this book at age 14, haha.

I loved this book though. And I love Carl.

[Treasure Island Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everybody but Beany seems to be getting married and starting their lives. Beany and Carlton have to wait until he finishes his degree.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm re-reading my Beany Malone books (I have the whole collection, via Image Cascade), and I think this is probably my least favorite. All of Beany's most annoying qualities come together in this book and I just want to smack her upside the head. (Basic plot: Beany's friends are all getting married, and she is sulking because she has to wait for 1 year and 9 months until Carl graduates from college.) And if I'm not wanting to smack Beany, I'm itching to smack Dulcie, who is so thoughtless around poor Kay.

I guess I should accept by now that Beany doesn't really ever learn from her mistakes, but just keeps behaving this way in more or less every book. I do like the series overall, but mostly, I realize now, because of the *other* Malones, especially Johnny and Mary Fred.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-reading the Beany Malone series from my high school days. More so than many of the others, this book seems sooooo dated. This tells the story of the time between their engagement and Beany and Carl's actual wedding. Many of their friends are marrying right out of high school and Beanie is impatient that Carlton is adamant about waiting. Beanie is jealous of all of her friends. I realize now she had some real issues with PMS, and they came out in full blast in her arguments with Carlton. And maybe issues with sexual frustration...because nobody in Beany land did the deed before getting hitched. LOL Old-fashioned values, good people, and heart warming stories. I love LMW's books.

[Mary Combrink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, my revisiting the Malone family continues with “Tarry Awhile”. Beany and Carl are engaged, but Beany is struggling with the idea of having to wait a year until Carl graduates to get married. It seems that everyone she knows is marrying young and doing just fine, and Beany hates that Carl seems to be just fine with waiting.

As in all of Weber’s books, there’s a lesson for Beany to learn, but only after she struggles, makes mistakes, and comes out the other side and little stronger and wiser.

I unabashedly love the Beany Malone series. It immediately transports me to a different time and place. It’s the ultimate in comfort reading, and it’s like spending time with family.

[Hannah Garden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, these girls live in a totally different world. Twenty-year olds getting married is a horifying prospect to me. But not in this book! These little families are built happily, happily. So sweet.

[Mary M · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was much as I remembered it - you feel the anxiety of Beany for Kay and how conflicted she is as those around her have romances/marriage proceeding at a different pace than she and Carl have chosen. Have to love the Lilac Way kids!

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the very first hardcover copy of an LMW book I found -- at a library sale in Sioux Falls, SD, for 50 cents. That's when I realized that I could actually seek out the others and *own* them.

[Sonja]

one of my all time favourites

[Bookworm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really, Beany was just being silly in this one-it would have been much better if the book had just focused on the other characters problems, and Beany's helping them.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone notice how it was ok for Kay's boss to sexually harass her?