C M Y K Nxxx,2019-12-22,A,001,Bs-4C,E3

At many musicals these days, post-curtain numbers send audiences intothe night with a parting gift. PAGE 5

The Show Must Go On, and On

An unguided Robinson Crusoe-inspiredsail around the Exuma Islands in theBahamas brings eight friends evencloser together. PAGE 4

TRAVEL

A Castaway Life

China’s repressed Uighurs have longfound sanctuary in Turkey. But as thecountry strengthens ties with China, theUighurs are worried. PAGE 6

INTERNATIONAL 4-15

Shrinking Haven for UighursRichard North Patterson wrote best-selling novels about presidents, until hedecided that the political moment wastoo strange to make anything up. PAGE 16

NATIONAL 16-32

Fiction Writer Shifts to TruthRemember when social networking wasseen as a force for revolution and techbillionaires were like heroes? Whathappened? In short, the 2010s. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

The Decade Tech Lost Its Way

The only two pools that allow femaleswimmers in Kabul, Afghanistan, havebecome a reprieve from bombings andthe threat of a Taliban takeover. PAGE 8

For Women, a Watery Respite

After the police killed the suspects of agang rape and murder in a major Indi-an city, support has risen for vigilanteviolence against other suspects. PAGE 14

Street Justice Surges in India

A growing home-funeral movementbelieves that families can benefit bytending to and being with the bodies oftheir deceased loved ones.

MAGAZINE

Longer Goodbyes

Nicholas Kristof PAGE 9

SUNDAY REVIEW

WASHINGTON — Americanmilitary and intelligence officialstracking North Korea’s actions bythe hour say they are bracing foran imminent test of an interconti-nental ballistic missile capable ofreaching American shores, butappear resigned to the fact thatPresident Trump has no good op-tions to stop it.

If the North goes ahead with thetest in the coming days — Pyong-yang promised a “Christmas gift”if no progress had been made onlifting sanctions — it would be aglaring setback for Mr. Trump’sboldest foreign policy initiative,even as he faces an impeachmenttrial at home.

American officials are playingdown the missile threat, thoughsimilar tests two years agoprompted Mr. Trump to suggestthat “fire and fury,” and perhaps awar, could result.

Mr. Trump often cites the sus-pension of long-range missile andunderground nuclear tests for thepast two years as evidence thathis leader-to-leader diplomacywith the North was working —and that such negotiating skillswould persuade the North’sleader, Kim Jong-un, to give up hisarsenal.

The administration’s argumenthas now changed. Should Mr. Kimresume tests, American officialssay, it will be a sign that he trulyfeels jammed, and has concludedWashington will not lift crushingsanctions on his impoverished na-tion anytime soon.

Left unaddressed, however, isthe challenge that a new missiletest would represent, and whatthat would mean for the sanctionsstrategy. Over the past week,Stephen E. Biegun, the North Ko-rea envoy who was confirmed bythe Senate on Thursday as thenext deputy secretary of state, hastraveled across East Asia to alsotry to stem new efforts by Russiaand China to weaken those sanc-tions.

Military officials say there areno plans to try to destroy a missileon the launchpad, or intercept it inthe atmosphere — steps bothPresidents George W. Bush andBarack Obama considered, andrejected. It is unclear if the mili-tary’s Cyber Command is still try-ing to sabotage the launches fromafar, as it did under the Obama ad-ministration, with mixed results.

Instead, officials say, if the

NEW MISSILE TESTBREWS AS TRUMPFAILS TO SWAY KIM

LURKING THREAT TO U.S.

Stalled Diplomacy GivesNorth Koreans Time

to Bolster Arsenal

This article is by David E. Sanger,Edward Wong and Michael Crow-ley.

Continued on Page 10

SOFIA, Bulgaria — The Rus-sian assassin used an alias, SergeiFedotov, and slipped into Bulgariaunnoticed, checking into a hotel inSofia near the office of a local armsmanufacturer who had been sell-ing ammunition to Ukraine.

He led a team of three men.Within days, one man sneaked

into a locked parking garage,smeared poison on the handle ofthe arms manufacturer’s car, thenleft, undetected, except for blurryimages captured by surveillancevideo.

Shortly after, the arms manu-facturer, Emilian Gebrev, wasmeeting with business partners ata rooftop restaurant when he be-gan to hallucinate and vomit.

The poisoning left Mr. Gebrev,now 65, hospitalized for a month.His son was poisoned, and so wasanother top executive at his com-pany. When Mr. Gebrev was dis-charged, the assassins poisonedhim and his son again, at theirsummer home on the Black Sea.They all survived, though Mr. Ge-brev’s business has yet to recoverfully.

The assassination attempts in2015 were remarkable not only fortheir brazenness and persistence,but also because security and in-telligence officials in the West ini-tially did not notice. Bulgarianprosecutors looked at the case,failed to unearth any evidence andclosed it.

Now Western security and in-telligence officials say the Bulgar-ia poisonings were a critical cluethat helped expose a campaign bythe Kremlin and its sprawling webof intelligence operatives to elimi-nate Russia’s enemies abroad anddestabilize the West.

“With Bulgaria, there was an‘aha’ moment,” said one Europeansecurity official, who spoke oncondition of anonymity to discussclassified intelligence matters.“We looked at it and thought,damn, everything aligned.”

Entering his third decade inpower, President Vladimir V.Putin of Russia is pushing hard tore-establish Russia as a worldpower. Russia cannot competeeconomically or militarily withthe United States and China, soMr. Putin is waging an asymmet-ric shadow war. Russian merce-naries are fighting in Syria, Libyaand Ukraine. Russian hackers aresowing discord through disinfor-mation and working to undermineelections.

Russian assassins have alsobeen busy.

In October, The New YorkTimes revealed that a specializedgroup of Russian intelligence op-eratives — Unit 29155 — had foryears been assigned to carry outkillings and political disruption

‘Aha’ Moment In Poisonings

Led to Russia

Attack on Arms DealerBared Assassins Unit

By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ

Continued on Page 12

In the summer of 2018, Putnampublished an unusual debut novelby a retired wildlife biologistnamed Delia Owens. The book,which had an odd title and didn’tfit neatly into any genre, hardlyseemed destined to be a block-buster, so Putnam printed about28,000 copies.

It wasn’t nearly enough.A year and a half later, the nov-

el, “Where the Crawdads Sing,” anabsorbing, atmospheric tale abouta lonely girl’s coming of age in themarshes of North Carolina, hassold more than four and a half mil-lion copies. It’s an astonishing tra-jectory for any debut novelist,much less for a reclusive, 70-year-old scientist, whose previous pub-lished works chronicled the dec-

ades she spent in the deserts andvalleys of Botswana and Zambia,where she studied hyenas, lionsand elephants.

As the end of 2019 approaches,“Crawdads” has sold more printcopies than any other adult titlethis year — fiction or nonfiction —according to NPD BookScan,blowing away the combined printsales of new novels by John Grish-am, Margaret Atwood andStephen King. Putnam has re-turned to the printers nearly 40times to feed a seemingly bottom-

less demand for the book. Foreignrights have sold in 41 countries.

Industry analysts have strug-gled to explain the novel’s stayingpower, particularly at a momentwhen fiction sales over all are flag-ging, and most blockbuster novelsdrop off the best-seller list after afew weeks.

For the past several years, adultfiction sales have steadily fallen —in 2019, adult fiction sales throughearly December totaled around116 million units, down fromnearly 144 million in 2015, accord-ing to NPD BookScan. In a toughretail environment for fiction,publishers and agents frequentlycomplain that it has become hard-er and harder for even establishednovelists to break through thenoise of the news cycle.

“Crawdads” seems to be the

Where Crawdads Sing, and Fly Off the ShelvesBy ALEXANDRA ALTER

Continued on Page 28

A Debut Novel DefyingGravity at the Top of

Best-Seller Lists

MATT LUDTKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

In its 100th year, the N.F.L. sits atop America’s sports hierarchy. It wasn’t always so. SportsSunday.A Century of Organized Chaos

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. — Bythe summer of 2017, Dave Trott, atwo-term Republican congress-man, was worried enough aboutPresident Trump’s erratic behav-ior and his flailing attempts to re-peal the Affordable Care Act thathe criticized the president in aclosed-door meeting with fellowG.O.P. lawmakers.

The response was instanta-

neous — but had nothing to dowith the substance of Mr. Trott’sconcerns. “Dave, you need toknow somebody has already toldthe White House what you said,”he recalled a colleague telling him.“Be ready for a barrage of tweets.”

Mr. Trott got the message: Todefy Mr. Trump is to invite thepresident’s wrath, ostracismwithin the party and a prematureend to a career in Republican poli-tics. Mr. Trott decided not to seekre-election in his suburban Detroitdistrict, concluding that running

as anti-Trump Republican was un-tenable, and joining a wave of Re-publican departures from Con-gress that has left those who re-main more devoted to the presi-dent than ever.

“If I was still there and speak-ing out against the president,what would happen to me?” Mr.Trott said before answering hisown question: Mr. Trump wouldhave lashed out and pressuredHouse G.O.P. leaders to punishhim.

Just under four years after he

began his takeover of a party towhich he had little connection, Mr.Trump enters 2020 burdened withthe ignominy of being the first sit-ting president to seek re-electionafter being impeached.

But he does so wearing a politi-cal coat of armor built on total loy-

Republican Party Under Trump Offers 2 Options: All In, or OutBy JONATHAN MARTIN

and MAGGIE HABERMAN

Forty percent of Republican members of Congress have either retired or lost at the ballot box since President Trump took office.DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 22

REYNOSA, Mexico — He re-members being on his knees,gagged and blinded with ducttape, his hands tied behind hisback. One of his captors struck hisleft thigh with a bat and scrapedhis neck with an ax, threatening tocut him.

His 3-year-old son watched andwailed.

“Tell the boy to shut up. Makehim shut up,” one of the menbarked, ripping the duct tape fromhis mouth.

A few hours earlier, the 28-year-old migrant from Honduras,whose name is José, had beenwalking with his son down a streetin Reynosa, Mexico, having beenturned back at the border by theUnited States. Suddenly threemen grabbed him, shoved a hood

over his head and thrust him andhis son into a vehicle.

The abduction on Nov. 25 set offhours of intense negotiations asJosé’s wife in the United States,forced to listen to the sounds ofher husband being tortured, tear-fully negotiated a ransom over thephone.

In a series of phone conversa-tions, and in several voice mes-sages reviewed by The New YorkTimes, the wife, a woman namedCindy who works at a bakery inElizabeth, N.J., promised to getthe $3,000 the kidnappers weredemanding. “I will do everythingto get it,” she said, sobbing into thephone. “But don’t let them hurthim. Take care of the child.”

Hundreds of thousands of peo-ple fled Central America over the

past year, many of them seekingasylum in the United States fromthreats of extortion, murder andforced recruitment into gangs.But instead of allowing them toenter, the Trump administration

has forced more than 55,000 asy-lum seekers to wait for months inlawless Mexican border townslike Reynosa while it considerstheir requests for protection, ac-

Barred by U.S., Migrants SufferIn Violent Limbo Along Border

By MIRIAM JORDAN

Kidnappers tortured José in front of his son last month in Mex-ico. They demanded ransom in phone calls to his wife in the U.S.

ILANA PANICH-LINSMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 21

Eight journalists who were forced toleave newsrooms in 2019 reflect on thecoverage they left undone. PAGE 26

Stories Lost on the News Beat

U(D5E71D)x+\!#!_!#!;

In a year of uneasy masculinity, men infilms are working on their issues andfeelings. Often left out? Women. PAGE 10

ARTS & LEISURE

Hollywood’s Male Troubles

AID TO UKRAINE Officials dis-cussed a freeze after a Trump-Zelensky call, emails show. PAGE 31

A little fakery was involved as the Patri-ots won their 11th straight A.F.C. Easttitle by defeating the Bills. PAGE 14

SPORTSSUNDAY

Sun Rises. Patriots Win Title.

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . No. 58,549 © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2019

Today, partly sunny, a mild after-noon, the high is 46. Tonight, cloudy,the low is 36. Tomorrow, sunshineand patchy clouds, mild, the high is51. Weather map is on Page 30.

$6.00