BOOKS: NAIROBI, MON AMOUR

One sign of a civilization's slippage is the ease with which it blurs the line between tragedy and farce. Consider Justin Cartwright's Masai Dreaming (Random House; 287 pages; $23), a novel about the making of a Hollywood adventure movie with a Holocaust hook. The satirical possibilities are unnerving. Spectacular East African scenery, colorful colonials and free-range tribesmen, with the Final Solution worked in. How about Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts?

Spiraling gracefully toward that conclusion, Cartwright, a novelist with film experience, often becomes the target of his own satire. At the center of the story is S.O. Letterman, a movie producer...