diff --git a/Lib/test/pickletester.py b/Lib/test/pickletester.py
index c53262e358b48e..3f6560869f34ac 100644
--- a/Lib/test/pickletester.py
+++ b/Lib/test/pickletester.py
@@ -4925,6 +4925,31 @@ def test_load_from_and_dump_to_file(self):
         unpickled = self.load(stream)
         self.assertEqual(unpickled, data)
 
+    def test_load_from_file_returning_bytes_subclass(self):
+        # gh-158841: read() returning a bytes subclass must not crash
+        # when the payload is large enough to need several chunked reads.
+        class MyBytes(bytes):
+            pass
+
+        class Reader:
+            def __init__(self, data):
+                self.data = data
+                self.pos = 0
+            def read(self, n):
+                chunk = self.data[self.pos:self.pos + n]
+                self.pos += len(chunk)
+                return MyBytes(chunk)
+            def readline(self):
+                end = self.data.find(b'\n', self.pos)
+                end = len(self.data) if end < 0 else end + 1
+                line = self.data[self.pos:end]
+                self.pos = end
+                return line
+
+        obj = {'v': 'B' * (3 * 1024 * 1024)}
+        data = self.dumps(obj, protocol=4)
+        self.assertEqual(self.load(Reader(data)), obj)
+
     def test_highest_protocol(self):
         # Of course this needs to be changed when HIGHEST_PROTOCOL changes.
         self.assertEqual(pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL, 5)
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2026-10-05-14-30-00.gh-issue-158841.pK3vNd.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2026-10-05-14-30-00.gh-issue-158841.pK3vNd.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..eda6d7daefa48d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2026-10-05-14-30-00.gh-issue-158841.pK3vNd.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Fix a crash in :func:`pickle.load` and :class:`pickle.Unpickler` when the
+``read()`` method of the file object returns an instance of a :class:`bytes`
+subclass and the requested size is large.
diff --git a/Modules/_pickle.c b/Modules/_pickle.c
index 5339337741d2f2..f214f71425b492 100644
--- a/Modules/_pickle.c
+++ b/Modules/_pickle.c
@@ -1439,6 +1439,17 @@ _Unpickler_ReadFromFile(PickleState *state, UnpicklerObject *self, Py_ssize_t n)
         if (data == NULL) {
             return -1;
         }
+        if (cursize < n && PyBytes_Check(data) && !PyBytes_CheckExact(data)) {
+            /* read() may return a bytes subclass, which cannot be resized
+               in place.  Copy it into an exact bytes object. */
+            PyObject *exact = PyBytes_FromStringAndSize(
+                PyBytes_AS_STRING(data), PyBytes_GET_SIZE(data));
+            Py_DECREF(data);
+            if (exact == NULL) {
+                return -1;
+            }
+            data = exact;
+        }
         while (cursize < n) {
             Py_ssize_t prevsize = cursize;
             // geometrically double the chunk size to avoid CPU DoS