Who is Russell Hadrick in the novel, The Girls?

Russell Hadrick is the leader of the group who live together at the ranch. Russell has sex with all of the women who live at the ranch, including Evie despite her being only 14 years old. Russell uses his awareness of Evie’s desire to be noticed and valued in order to coerce her into doing things that she does not want to do.

Russell pretends to have no interest in capitalism and material possessions but his avarice is revealed through his obsession with becoming famous. Russell befriends the well-known musician Mitch Lewis in order to try to procure a record deal for himself so that he can be famous too. When Mitch fails to follow through with the expected record deal, all of Russell’s talk of peace and love goes out of the window and he quickly turns the group towards violent revenge against Mitch.